tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800Tue, 03 Mar 2015 21:45:08 +0000SyriaBashar AssadBashar Al-AssaddamascusLebanonHezbollahBeirutWorld NewsEgyptIranWashingtonIsraelSyria RevolutionLibyaSyrian revolutionIraqAmericaSyria uprisingSyrian regime crimesSyrian uprisingBarack ObamaPresident Barack ObamaAmerican University Of BeirutDaraaLibya RevolutionSaad HaririAntalyaHosni MubarakMoammar QadhafiSaudi ArabiaUnited SatesWalid JumblattArab SpringAssadChinaDemocracyHaririHillary ClintonHomsMarch 14Middle EastThe Washington PostcairofreedomAl JazeeraAl-JazeeraArabBahrainEconomicsHotel WashingtonImad MustafaIran protestsJohn KerryPalestineSyrian oppositionTunisiaTurkeybaghdadtehranBarak ObamaDemocratsFirst AmendmentFranceGeorge BushHussain Abdul-HussainJoshua LandisObamaPower and Policy in SyriaQatarSaddam HusseinSpecial Tribunal for LebanonWashington DCYemenpeace talksATFPAl-Rai newspaper KuwaitAmr MoussaAngry ArabBill ClintonBin LadenConsensus DemocracyDavid IgnatiusDepartment of StateDonal RumsfeldEconomyEgypt revoltEgyptianForeign PolicyFreedom HouseHassan NasrallahHuman RightsIslamJames WolfensohnJames ZogbyJewish IsraelisKuwaitLebanese ForcesLebanese cabinetLibyanMichel AounHussain Abdul-Hussain's Blog| <a href="http://hahussain.blogspot.com"> النسخة العربية للمدونة </a> | <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/hahussain">Follow me on twitter @hahussain</a> | <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/hahussain?feature=mhum"> TV Appearances </a> |http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)Blogger485125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-549700077900786461Tue, 03 Mar 2015 21:44:00 +00002015-03-03T16:45:08.867-05:00Netanyahu's 'savage' world view<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UA5cpv1xpy8/VPYrT_tvpQI/AAAAAAAADI4/geG3wYrJxM4/s1600/bibi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UA5cpv1xpy8/VPYrT_tvpQI/AAAAAAAADI4/geG3wYrJxM4/s1600/bibi.jpg" height="562" width="840" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/dfd92610-9c9f-4df0-bd73-994fa5e7cb14">Al-Araby Al-Jadeed</a><br /><br />The clash between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may seem to be about Iran's nuclear programme. But the rift is much deeper and revolves around a fundamental difference in the two men's worldviews. Obama belongs to a school of thought that believes world affairs are complicated, that for every issue there are shades of grey, and that sweeping generalizations only result in aggravating problems. To Netanyahu, however, things are simple. There are the good guys – us – and bad guys – them.<br /><br />That is why when Obama strives to differentiate between terrorists from all backgrounds and Islam as a religion, and when Obama looks for friends anywhere he can find them, Netanyahu paints with a broad brush and seeks friends only among those who share his views. Instead of seeking friends, Netanyahu does not mind dumping them, even if those dumped include the president of the United States.&nbsp;</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Netanyahu's simplistic view of good and evil is not new. Before him, former President George W Bush saw the world in similar light, uttering his famous statement "you are either with us, or against us." And long before Netanyahu told a crowd at the annual conference of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that in "a dark, savage, and desperate Middle East, Israel is a beacon of humanity, light, and hope," late President Ronald Reagan described America as the world’s "shining city on a hill."&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This wholesale dumping of others into a single category of barbarism is a problem that Netanyahu shares with America's Right: both perceive themselves as virtuous people, who live in 'shining' nations, surrounded by darkness and savages.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thankfully, not all Americans subscribe to such views. When Netanyahu, fortified with Aipac's muscles, tried to shove his opinion down American throats, snubbing the president in the process, a leftist uproar became inevitable and now threatens America’s longstanding bipartisan support of Israel.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">&nbsp;Thus, no matter how influential the Israel lobby is, Netanyahu's assault on America's Left might have awakened a long sleeping beast. Losing America's left for Netanyahu’s petty political gains might prove short-sighted. And by lumping all of the Middle East into one box labelled 'medieval barbarian savages', the Israeli leader assaulted many Arab governments that have either been Washington's strategic partners or have maintained peace treaties and security cooperation with Israel, or both.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And speaking of partners, it might be worth mentioning that for years now, Netanyahu has blamed Palestinians for not being good peace partners. Yet with Netanyahu’s views, it is hard to understand how anyone – other than America's right-wing – can collaborate with the Israeli prime minister.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">&nbsp;In his speech at AIPAC, Netanyahu probably felt at home. He let down his guard and let go of diplomacy that might have forced him to say that Israel seeks partners amongst those whom he called barbarians in the Middle East. After all, the Israeli official spoke to a crowd that values vigilantism and violence and views them as the only possible means of interaction with "the other".&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Netanyahu's views at AIPAC were not new. In fact, it is inexplicable how his hate toward Obama and America’s liberals took this long to surface. Netanyahu professed such antagonism in the past when he endorsed Mitt Romney for president in 2012. That unusual step was the precursor of Netanyahu's unabashed intervention in US affairs and his open favouritism of the Right and scorn of the Left.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">&nbsp;Perhaps to Netanyahu, it is not even Israel and America versus the world, but rather the right-wings in both countries against everybody else. If these are his lines of delineation, then Netanyahu’s list of friends is very short, and that of his enemies much longer. In such a case, he would need even more bullying and force against all the savages, in America and around the world. Perhaps that is how he thinks the world can become safer for his existence, and more enlightened and hopeful.</span></div></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/03/netanyahus-savage-world-view.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-3110783651408503968Mon, 02 Mar 2015 13:43:00 +00002015-03-02T08:43:41.983-05:00Good Islamic Republic, perverted Islamic State<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HsTljr_lJ-E/VPRow-04wOI/AAAAAAAADIE/WwxgMJiiukg/s1600/nusraaleppo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HsTljr_lJ-E/VPRow-04wOI/AAAAAAAADIE/WwxgMJiiukg/s1600/nusraaleppo.jpg" height="508" width="840" /></span></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span><br /><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564904-good-islamic-republic-perverted-islamic-state"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">NOW</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Telling good Muslims from “perverted” ones should not be the job of President Barack Obama, who gleefully took on this role at the Summit for Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). ISIS “presumes to declare itself the Islamic State,”&nbsp;said Obama. “We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie.&nbsp;[W]e are not at war with Islam.&nbsp; We are at war with people who have perverted Islam,” he added.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But America was designed to be blind to religion. By defining acceptable religion, Obama violates the Constitution. Instead, the president should worry about those who do not understand the difference between public and private. The majority of Arab countries – along with Turkey, Iran, Russia, China and many others – suffer from such confusion. That is why all these nations occupy the bottom of freedom rankings.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Consider Jordan, a stable nation with a moderate king and one of America’s leading partners in the war on ISIS and Al-Qaeda. In Ramadan, when Muslims fast during daytime, Jordanian law prohibits public consumption of food or drinks, a clear infringement on individual liberty.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Such censorship is benign and justified on the grounds of showing “respect” toward the country’s Muslim majority. No matter the justification, such prohibition is a clear case of “tyranny of the majority.”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In Amman, public eating during Ramadan results in a fine or probably short detention. In Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State, a similar offense results in heads rolling. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, homosexuals are hung from cranes and fornicators are stoned to death. Yet, while Obama wages a war on the Islamic State, he insists on diplomacy with the Islamic Republic.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Infringement on personal liberty is not related to the Islamic nature of these two “states.” It is rather part of the regional culture. Even under secular regimes, like those of Saddam Hussein, the government cut off the hand of anyone found with foreign currency. Noses and ears of army deserters were chopped off too. At Iraqi ports of entry, officials conducted HIV tests. Iraqis with positive results were jailed indefinitely.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to the principles of the Enlightenment, elected government can regulate issues pertaining to public space or safety only. Governments cannot regulate social behavior, including respect of divine or worldly beliefs. Governments cannot regulate thought or art either, even the kind deemed repulsive by a majority in any country.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Western governments observe most of these principles, despite the dominance of the outdated code of Victorian ethics, especially pertaining to dress and modesty, which results in banning public nudity and prostitution among other issues. The battle for liberty, including gay rights, is still raging. Government is an ongoing experiment in the West.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For Muslims anywhere, divine teachings should govern public space and behavior. Thus, public peace becomes incumbent on interpretation: the less austere it is the more moderate the state. However, governments should not engage in who interprets what and how. The world, and Obama, should convince Muslims that the public good requires a civil governing code. ISIS then can interpret Islam as “perverted” as they want as long as they do not impose their belief on the public sphere. The same goes for Iran.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Throughout the Charlie Hebdo episode, not a single Muslim – moderate or radical, Sunni, Shia or “perverted” – waved the offensive cartoons dismissively. No Muslims took Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons as a lame joke or said “who cares.”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Almost all Muslims wanted the offensive cartoons gone, whether out of “respect” to Islam or as a correction of the “double-standard laws of freedom” in the West. Most Muslims described Mohammad as a family member, showing their inability to differentiate between the privacy of their families and the public nature of a prophet with a universal message.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Frustration with liberty is the same for Muslim moderates and radicals. Only acting on it is different between the two. Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Iran (with its premium on the head of novelist Salman Rushdie), take confusion between the public sphere and religion to the extreme. Instead of writing against Charlie Hebdo or rebutting Rushdie, Islamist radicals – whether from the State or the Republic – simply kill cartoonists or chase novelists.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Therefore, for CVE to work, it is imperative for Muslims to accept liberty. President Obama should focus his energy on urging Muslims to endorse such a concept, instead of whimsically grading good Muslims versus perverted ones.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Obama should not differentiate between the different branches of Islam because the world should accept them all. The world should also expect the different branches of Islam to live and let live.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While not perfect, European Enlightenment has been the most successful experiment in government. For the majority of Muslims, and many Chinese, Russians and other peoples, the European Renaissance has stolen the thunder of their civilization. Therefore, these nations have resisted Enlightenment under the guise of “cultural relativity,” claiming that their societies have their own peculiarities and that Western principles cannot possibly work for them.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Despite his professorial demeanor, President Obama has failed in comprehending what made the West like it is – stable, prosperous and free – and in realizing the importance of preaching these principles to other nations to follow suit. Telling Muslims “we love you” will not solve the crisis the majority of Muslims live in.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Alrai newspaper. He tweets @hahussain</span></em></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/03/good-islamic-republic-perverted-islamic.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-4850265860830220281Fri, 27 Feb 2015 16:44:00 +00002015-02-27T11:44:50.433-05:00US 'ignored appeals for help from Syrian Christians' <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M3e-jDb95-c/VPCe4T7LVcI/AAAAAAAADG4/VO1eqhM76KY/s1600/265.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M3e-jDb95-c/VPCe4T7LVcI/AAAAAAAADG4/VO1eqhM76KY/s1600/265.jpg" height="460" width="840" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/9fc864ea-ccb6-4362-8835-84e8972e132a">al-Araby al-Jadeed</a><br /><br />The US military did not act to prevent Islamic State group attacks on Syriac Christian villages in Syria despite repeated warnings by the community and appeals for help, a representative has told al-Araby al-Jadeed.<br /><br />Robert Gabriel, a lobbyist for the New Jersey-based American Syriac Union, said that he had held dozens of meetings since September with US officials to relay "our people's concern inside Syria of the imminent IS attack on our villages" near the city of Hasakeh. <br /><br />"We sent them emails, called, met, we told them Kobane now, our villages later," said Gabriel, in reference to the northern Kurdish Syrian town that had been besieged by the IS last year. What he was told in reply was "no promises, nothing - only wait and we will contact you". <br /><br />"The IS had been raiding territory outside our villages for months, burning fields and destroying houses. Three weeks ago, IS militants showed up in Tell Hormizd, told people that they should convert to Islam and burned their crops."<br /> <br />The US-led alliance began bombing the IS positions this week after the group attacked a chain of 35 villages, home to about 30,000 Assyrian Christians, outside Hasakeh.<br /><br />Reports indicated that the IS had so far occupied 11 villages and abducted more than 400 Christians including women and children.<br /><br />Gabriel told al-Araby al-Jadeed that the Syriac community's situation was desperate, and they needed more than airstrikes. <br /><br />"We have a lot of volunteers, but we lack arms and equipment. All we can get are the AK47s from the black market. ISIS have tanks and artillery which makes us no match. If IS takes Tal Hormizd, it will surround Hasakeh.<br /><br />"Airstrikes cannot help defend a line 40km long while the ground force consists of fighters with Kalashnikovs only when IS come with tanks."<br /><br />The Syriac forces have been assembled with the help of Yohan Cosar, a Swiss-born reservist sergeant whose parents had emigrated from Syria to Switzerland. He has been fighting in Syria since 2013.<br /><br />US officials have not commented on Gabriel's statements. However John Allen, a US general and envoy in the anti-IS alliance, told the US Senate on February 19 that the US was "working closely with regional partners to establish sites for training and equipping vetted, moderate Syrian opposition elements, to train approximately 5,000 troops per year for the next three years".<br /><br />Fred Hoff, a senior US diplomat on Syria until December 2012, said: "A train-and-equip effort aimed at producing 15,000 Syrian personnel over three years seems to lack the requisite urgency and heft. Chasing armed criminals with F-16s and F-18s is not the way to win."</span>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/02/us-ignored-appeals-for-help-from-syrian.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-3025561146798971865Mon, 16 Feb 2015 13:51:00 +00002015-02-16T08:51:15.953-05:00Was the Arab Spring a bad idea?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z2N-pjtwT5Q/VOH1vZFO5OI/AAAAAAAADFQ/HQhPU81XI_c/s1600/000_ts-nic64165.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z2N-pjtwT5Q/VOH1vZFO5OI/AAAAAAAADFQ/HQhPU81XI_c/s1600/000_ts-nic64165.jpg" height="508" width="840" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentary/564833-was-the-arab-spring-a-bad-idea">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You remember Qashush's beautiful song of "Yalla irhal ya Bashar" (Oh Bashar [Assad], Leave). You remember that Tunisian shouting "Ben Ali harab" (Ben Ali has escaped). You remember the other Tunisian and his famous word “harimna” (we've grown old [waiting for freedom]). You remember that long stretch of deafening whistling when Hosni Mubarak said he was stepping down. Those were the days — 2011: the Arab Spring.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />It is hard to question good memories, but without revision, mistakes will be repeated and evolution becomes impossible. So what went wrong? How did the most hopeful moments for Arabs in modern history turn into their worst nightmare?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Some had been skeptical, but wanted to believe. Those who observed Iraq in 2003 and Lebanon in 2005 could perhaps foresee trouble. But even those who saw bad things coming could not say so because that would have made them enemies of freedom and defenders of dictatorships.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />In hindsight, perhaps the biggest mistake was the unnecessary focus on the autocrat and his henchmen, arguing that once these are gone, democracy would spread. We could not see that the brutal autocrat and his regime were the product of the same society that, while unchanged, was expected to produce different leaders.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Now we know. Saddam Hussein was not the exception in Iraq. He was the norm. He grew up in a&nbsp;violent society where he did not make the rules; he just perfected them. He beat everyone and ruled undisputed. Every now and then, Saddam sniffed a revolt and always managed to nip it in the bud.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Because Saddam, Assad, Mubarak, and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi beat all their rivals, their tyranny looked peaceful and their countries sovereign. But when the pot was stirred — whether when America ejected Saddam, Egyptians trounced Mubarak or Syrians weakened Assad — these Arab countries went back to their normal state: places where might is right.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Choosing between stable autocracies and civil war democracies had been an Arab conundrum and had been the argument Arab tyrants used for a long time.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />But when Americans arrived in Baghdad in 2003; when the Lebanese took to the streets en masse in 2005; when the Arab Spring came in 2011, it had been a while since the Arabs were allowed to choose between dictatorship and freedom. They believed change was easy and mistook their hollow states, built on secret police, with normal states with functioning bureaucracies.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Wherever dictators were toppled, their states crumbled. Freedom supporters thus doubled down: instead of taking out dictators and focusing on rebuilding the state, they blamed remnants of the regime for the ensuing chaos. Revolutionaries went after former regime associates, big and small, forcing them to either hide or hit back. The resulting battles delayed the rebuilding of central power, caused further instability and wasted precious time needed to run the state in times of change.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Then Washington came up with a lousy idea: topple the dictator, but keep his regime and expand it to include the opposition — at least that has been America's recommendation for Syria. The problem is that Arab tyrants have built houses of cards with them in the center. When they go, their states follow.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />We should have learned how the Kurds got rid of Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, only to create a Kurdistan as corrupt and nepotistic as Saddam’s Iraq. We should have learned that Baghdad's new Shiite rulers executed Saddam for revenge, not for justice. Without justice, state building becomes impossible.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />We should have learned that it was impossible to create a democratic Lebanon out of two rival coalitions, each made of sectarian parties with non-democratic leaderships. We should have known that those who were tasked with writing a new Egyptian constitution, when Mubarak had no clue what constitutions are for or what they look like, would force their religious beliefs into public affairs.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />And in Syria, we should have known that when the world looked the other way as Assad's forces sprayed peaceful protesters with bullets, toppling Bashar would be impossible without an ugly, inhumane and costly battle. Assad successfully brought out the worst in many Syrians. He kept on beating them until they started beating back. When they did, the world called them terrorists because they were violent non-state actors.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />The Arab Spring has failed, but the Arabs should have no regrets. Whoever wants democracy should focus on creating citizens and cultivating a civil culture, without which any future revolution will be — like the previous ones — a mere shakeup rather than actual change.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />The Arab problem is not their political players, but the rules of their game. Only a comprehensive overhaul works. Who can do it? Maybe a combination of domestic “know thyself,” some foreign assistance, and lots of luck can.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/02/was-arab-spring-bad-idea.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-2208376624468343053Sun, 15 Feb 2015 14:44:00 +00002015-02-15T09:45:34.329-05:00Warren: Tough on Wall Street, indifferent to Palestinians<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-djByDpXGU1g/VOCw-HvDrmI/AAAAAAAADEs/808kXP0OLys/s1600/121212085618-elizabeth-warren-monster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-djByDpXGU1g/VOCw-HvDrmI/AAAAAAAADEs/808kXP0OLys/s1600/121212085618-elizabeth-warren-monster.jpg" height="400" width="840" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/cd663b51-5e71-4c90-834e-d224bca346fa">Al-Araby Al-Jadeed</a><br /><br />Elizabeth Warren is a rising star. She has emerged as the hero of American liberal and progressive circles who see in the Senator from Massachusetts the embodiment of their fight against “vulture capitalism,” especially on Wall Street. Yet, somehow inexplicably, Warren and her fans part ways on foreign policy. Even though Warren rarely speaks on foreign affairs, she has toed the line of the Democratic Party by taking the side of Israel, a position that is unpopular with many Progressives in the party. <br /><br />Foreign policy notwithstanding, Warren’s popularity has prompted her fans to launch the “Draft Warren” campaign in a bid to push her into the 2016 presidential race. Warren has emerged as a principled alternative for America’s Left, especially after their disappointment with their previous candidate, now president, Barack Obama.<br /><br />Leftists today accuse Obama of entering into various unnecessary deals with Congress Republicans, the last of which allowed Republicans to dismantle parts of the Dodd-Frank Law that was designed to prohibit banks from speculating with depositors’ money on Wall Street.<br /><br />Warren, whose surged to fame came after her participation in the making of the Dodd-Frank Law and her role in the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), has shown resolve in standing up, not only to capitalist ideologues, but also to leading Democrats, including President Obama himself.<br /><br />When Obama nominated Wall Street banker Antonio Weiss to become Under Secretary at the Treasury Department, a position that requires Senate confirmation, Warren launched a crusade against the nomination and forced the White House to withdraw it.<br /><br />Warren ran for the Senate in 2012 in a tough battle against Republican incumbent Scott Brown. Her victory and her Senate activism made Progressive groups believe that they can replicate her success, not only against Republicans, but also against the Democratic establishment formed mainly of liberal centrists. In August, progressives started their push to make Warren run for president. In November, they launched the ongoing Draft Warren campaign, even though the Massachusetts Senator told Fortune magazine that she is not running.<br /><br />“Warren doesn’t want to run for president,” according to Zaid Jilani, an activist who worked for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee that raised over a million dollars for Warren’s Senate run. “If she wanted to run, she would have indicated it by now.” That is why Jilani has not participated in Draft Warren.<br /><br />Jilani added: “I think Warren would be popular if she decided to run for president because she speaks well to the economic anxieties of most Americans, and her allies would be a mishmash of people across the Democratic coalition.”<br /><br />Warren’s candidacy, however, would be an uphill battle, especially facing an all-but-certain run by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who once led all possible Democratic rivals by 43 points. Months after its launch, Draft Warren has only narrowed the gap between Warren and Clinton down to 40 points.<br /><br />Another problem for Warren would be fund raising. Even though she played a central role in raising money and motivating the Democratic base in the 2014 elections, competing with the formidable Clintons might prove a different challenge.<br /><br /><b>Progressive isolationist</b><br />And with a thin record on foreign policy, Warren might find it hard to beat Clinton in that domain. As far back as July, reports had it that Warren ran away to avoid a question about Israel’s assault on Gaza. But in August, she voted in favour of giving Israel $225 million for its “Iron Dome” missile defence system. Warren later defended the vote by citing America’s “very special relationship with Israel. Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world," according to the Cape Cod Times.<br /><br />Warren's unequivocal support for Israel echoes the electoral platform on her website in which she says that Israel "must maintain a qualitative defensive edge", that America should "ensure that Israel can defend itself", and that "Palestinians' membership efforts before the United Nations are unhelpful" and would make her "support vetoing a membership application". In November, Warren took her first foreign trip as a senator to Israel.<br /><br />“I think she's very disinterested in foreign policy and so she just goes with the default Democratic positions on issues like that, which are bad,” said Jilani. “She has allied closely with the Progressive movement for her bank reform ideas, so it does impact her that increasingly young Progressives view Israel's policies as harmful to US interests and to Palestinian human rights.”<br /><br />Jilani might be right. In September, Warren stayed away from a letter to the State Department in which 88 Senators called "for preventing Hamas from rebuilding its military capabilities" and "preventing negative developments at the UN General Assembly" resulting from the Palestinian bid for statehood.<br /><br />Warren also did not sign a letter by 10 Democratic senators threatening President Obama that should negotiations fail to produce tangible results by March 24, they would join 54 Republicans in voting for new sanctions on Iran. Should the Democratic senators live up to their threat, they would put the majority very close to the 67 votes required to override a presidential veto.<br /><br />While being a non-signatory to both letters might seem a balancing act on the part of Warren, it should be noted that she seems to have taken her cue from Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid, who also passed on both. On foreign policy, Warren clearly toes the line of the Democratic establishment.<br /><br />It all begs the question: Why does this rising Progressive senator star, who went as far as rebelling against Obama over his nomination of a Wall Street banker, simply stick with the official party line on foreign policy?<br /><br />“If she learned that the same people who want her to take on Wall Street want her to tout a more balanced line on Palestine, she can be pushed on the issue,” Jilani argued.<br /><br />But Progressives do not seem as hard on Warren on foreign policy as on domestic issues. Perhaps, the populist she is, Warren knows that America's Left is much more focused on domestic issues than foreign ones. And while America's Progressives think the government has an ethical duty to help the less fortunate inside the US, they are often oblivious to the pleas of those in distress overseas, whether in Palestine or Syria, and think that world problems should not be of America's business.<br /><br />There is a strand whereby progressives have combined domestic activism with foreign policy isolationism.<br /><br />Whatever Warren decides on running for president, she has to do so soon. Warren is 66. 2016 marks her last chance for a candidacy. And whatever her election chances, a Warren run would certainly force Clinton to veer to the left on domestic issues.<br /><br />That might be good for many American liberals. But on foreign policy, Warren's position will not influence Clinton's.<br /><br />Even if Warren chooses to run, wrote The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, "she won’t run as a tough-on-Israel liberal”. By sticking to her hawkish pro-Israel position, "Hillary knew what she was doing," said Goldberg.<br /><br />It seems it is Progressives hopeful of a Palestine-friendly Warren who do not know what they are doing.</span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/02/warren-tough-on-wall-street-indifferent.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-2850828734467652795Mon, 02 Feb 2015 13:27:00 +00002015-02-02T08:27:48.403-05:00Is Iran a better US ally than Saudi Arabia?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z4gJMCR67WY/VM97P5LyHFI/AAAAAAAADCs/BSCt-fmFvbs/s1600/000_nic6356163.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z4gJMCR67WY/VM97P5LyHFI/AAAAAAAADCs/BSCt-fmFvbs/s1600/000_nic6356163.jpg" height="490" width="840" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentary/564764-is-iran-a-better-us-ally-than-saudi-arabia">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Saudi Arabia is a spent force and an unreliable US ally. As such, Washington should replace Riyadh with Tehran, or so goes the thinking inside the Obama administration.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Brian Katulis, a think tanker with close ties to the Obama team, penned a&nbsp;<a href="http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/the-twilight-of-saudi-power/384858/" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">piece</a>&nbsp;in&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">The Atlantic</em>&nbsp;under the title “The twilight of Saudi power,” in which he put out what seems to have become common wisdom inside the White House and among its friends.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Former National Security Advisor Zbig Brzezinski echoed Washington’s bias toward Iran at the expense of Saudi Arabia at a congressional hearing. He said that he and another national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, who visited Riyadh with President Obama, share the idea that Iran “is beginning to evolve into a very civilized and historically important country.” Brezezinski then launched a scathing attack against other governments in the region.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Brzezinski’s&nbsp;comments mirrored Obama’s&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-02/obama-to-israel-time-is-running-out" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">interview</a>&nbsp;with&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Bloomberg Views</em>&nbsp;in March, in which the president said that if you “look at Iranian behavior, they are strategic, and they’re not impulsive. They have a worldview, and they see their interests, and they respond to costs and benefits.”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Saudi Arabia is one of the least-understood governments. Compounding the problem are writers who are divided into two camps: apologists, who depict Saudi rulers as superheroes; and enemies, who depict Riyadh as the pit of evil, ruled by ailing monarchs and rife with royal divisions.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Neither of these camps is correct. Since 1932, the Kingdom has seen six of the smoothest power successions at its helm. While some might underestimate such harmony, it should be noted that in most Arab ruling families, it is rare to see a succession between two brothers without a schism that often turns into competition, and even war, like the military standoff between late Syrian President Hafez Assad and his brother Rifaat in the 1980s.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Saudi Arabia’s founder has left behind some three-dozen sons and hundreds of grandsons; rarely are any of them voices of dissent. Instead, the House of Saud has managed to organize its competing ambitions into a harmonious process that many of us do not comprehend and that is probably based on a combination of seniority and consensus.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Blaming the Kingdom for relying heavily on its oil wealth has also been one of the unfair attacks. Money is power, and handling such enormous amounts of wealth — despite how it may seem — is not easy. Just look at other sovereigns whose petro powers have made them delusional. From Saddam Hussein to Vladimir Putin, power corrupts and creates a sense of invincibility. Both Hussein and Putin thought that they could bully the world with their oil-founded power until reality caught up with them and they found themselves isolated and their wealth shrinking.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Iran, too, despite calls by Ali Khamenei for the diversification of the economy, has been blinded by its oil-generated power. Under the current sanctions, however, Iran has come crashing down and would have fallen apart completely had it not been for the friend it has found in Obama and the lifeline he has thrown Tehran in the form of sanction relief.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As in every world capital, there are petty politics and power jockeying in Riyadh. But unlike capitals in which rulers use populist anti-Western slogans to beat domestic rivals or shore up popularity, the Saudi government has refrained from such shenanigans. And unlike Tehran, where a shadow government of hawks calls the shots behind a puppet president, the Saudis have one authority that keeps its word and delivers on its promises.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Saudi government has been stable for over eight decades. It has shown prudence in handling its oil wealth. Its leaders have lived through various upheavals and regional wars in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq and elsewhere. There is no reason to believe that Saudi stability is at stake or that the Kingdom faces threats in the medium or long term.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Like the rest of the region, Saudi Arabia faces a wave of fanaticism that sways many of its young men, but on a per capita basis, Saudi youth joining the Islamic State (ISIS) hardly top the chart. Riyadh outlaws Islamist groups and is an avowed enemy of ISIS and Al-Qaeda — unlike Tehran, whose rulers openly fund and support groups on America’s list of terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah, and other groups that openly call for “death to America,” such as the Houthis of Yemen.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since its inception, Saudi Arabia has been steady. While successive kings have demonstrated varying styles of rule, continuity has been the nation’s defining policy, and there is no reason to predict major developments or shakeups after the most recent succession.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">President Obama can try cozying up to Iran all he wants. But to play favorites by pretending that Iran is a more stable, less Islamic, and all-around better ally than Saudi Arabia is not only unfounded, it will make Washington’s allies — now and in the future — rethink their ties with an America that often grows bored of its friends, seeking instead the company of its seemingly more intriguing enemies.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/02/is-iran-better-us-ally-than-saudi-arabia.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-8868996254264900438Mon, 02 Feb 2015 13:26:00 +00002015-02-02T08:26:16.083-05:00Holy Molly: Texas lawmaker wants Americans to swear oath of allegiance in front of the Israeli flag<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-clRD7DBCKhI/VM965NXZtVI/AAAAAAAADCk/L8mprqXAn6s/s1600/265.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-clRD7DBCKhI/VM965NXZtVI/AAAAAAAADCk/L8mprqXAn6s/s1600/265.jpg" height="460" width="840" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/8c2ba682-d558-4de0-a979-d4e1b3296abf">Al-Araby Al-Jadeed</a><br /><br />Insecurity seems to have hit record high among a few conservative Americans, whose favorite brand of politics is scaremongering. Whether it is an imagined Islamic Sharia takeover, a secret Muslim president or an invasion of non-English speaking Latin Americans, these mostly white Americans live on the edge and thrive on populist slogans and an ideology full of contradictions.<br /><br />The most recent incarnation of this kind of conservative politics took place this past week, when an obscure group, the Patriot Defense Foundation (PDF) Inc., called for a rally to protest the Muslim Capitol Day in Austin, the capital of Texas.<br /><br />Organized by the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) since 2003, the Muslim Capitol Day is an annual event where Muslim-Americans visit their state’s capitol, meet lawmakers and staff, familiarize themselves with the political process and voice their concerns to their local representatives.<br /><br />But, following the example of the PDF, Molly White, the Texas House Representative from Bell County, posted a status on Facebook, objecting to the visit. <br /><br />Because Muslim-Americans were visiting the Capitol in her absence, White wrote: "I did leave an Israeli flag on the reception desk in my office with instructions to staff to ask representatives from the Muslim community to renounce Islamic terrorist groups and publicly announce allegiance to America and our laws." She added: "We will see how long they stay in my office."<br /><br />White's status caught the attention of America’s national media and turned PDF’s insignificant rally, which saw the participation of a mere two dozen people, into a bigger issue. <br /><br />PDF is an obscure “corporation” founded in 2015 with a membership that seems to consist of two people, its president Dianne Savage and her husband and only “board member” Charlton Savage, as per their website.<br /><br />On her Facebook page, Savage posted a video railing against an exhibition in a West Virginia high school in which students described, “Islam, the culture, the dress, their beliefs, the food they eat". Savage urged Americans to call the school and voice their concern. <br /><br />In the same video, Savage expressed her unequivocal opposition to tolerance and against teaching it in schools. “We need to send a strong message across the United States that ‘We the People’ are not going to tolerate this, and that was one of the words the principal used that we have to tolerate.” Savage added; “I let her know very strongly, we do not have to tolerate anything, this is America, you come here and you assimilate, we do not assimilate to you once you get here, we don’t have to be tolerant.”<br /><br />Savage seemed unaware that assimilation requires that Muslim-Americans visit the Texas Capitol and engage in Texan democracy. Had Muslim-Americans planned to implement Sharia, like the Savages claim, then visiting the Capitol would be the antithesis of their project.<br /><br />The PDF rally was not entirely parochial, however. Israel was heartily invoked and embraced. Pictures from the small rally show protesters holding placards that read, “God Bless America and Israel,” which probably explains White’s statement about an Israeli flag in her office.<br /><br />White is serving her first term as a Texan lawmaker. Her tenure started at the beginning of this year. This freshman representative is also a member of "3C Cowboy Church of Salado", a rural congregation with a distinctively “Western” American flavour. It is a "cowboy" characteristic that is increasingly coming to define a section of US conservatives, as evident in Clint Eastwood's controversial and Oscar-nominated movie American Sniper.<br /><br />Thinking of America as a cowboy culture is one thing. Incorporating Israel's majority Jewish culture into this monolithic America is something else. Add in the efforts of such conservatives - often pro-gun, anti-abortion types - to glorify cowboy violence, it is clear this has little to do with Christianity and everything to do with politics. If Christianity - and its central tenet of tolerance - were the issue, then these same conservatives would not ferociously protest Latin-Americans, most of whom are Christian, settling in the US.<br /><br />This cowboy bigotry is not about Islam, or Christianity. It is a hodgepodge ideology of contradictory ideas about an imagined America that is not diverse or tolerant and that is certainly not Christian.<br /><br />In this intolerant world, patriotism is a mesh of violence, guns and support of Israel. Why Israel? Because this monolithic America was presumably founded on "Judeo-Christian" principles, whatever that means and even if the US constitution says otherwise. In addition, for these cowboy conservatives, Israel is also important because it is prophesized to be the stage for the Armageddon at the end of times and the second coming of the Messiah.<br /><br />When myth meets bigotry, you wind up with lawmakers who think the pledge of allegiance should be recited in front of an Israeli flag. And then they doubt the patriotism of Muslim-Americans.<br /><br />Thankfully, White and the Savages are not representative of America or even its conservatives. They are a sliver of ultra-right wingers whose antics often cause a stir. <br /><br />And the resulting backlash is typically driven by non-Muslim Americans from a diverse spectrum that includes Christians, Jews, liberals and other citizens who value diversity, equality and tolerance. </span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/02/holy-molly-texas-lawmaker-wants.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-7270269317776540622Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:30:00 +00002015-01-26T08:30:49.878-05:00What is wrong with American Sniper?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yzMQmGegQ8w/VMZBWpmMj1I/AAAAAAAADBE/jMfn_shbUjQ/s1600/000_was8895560.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yzMQmGegQ8w/VMZBWpmMj1I/AAAAAAAADBE/jMfn_shbUjQ/s1600/000_was8895560.jpg" height="508" width="840" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentary/564723-what-is-wrong-with-american-sniper">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To Americans, men and women in uniform are heroes. Clint Eastwood takes one of them, Chris Kyle, and turns his life into an Oscar-nominated movie that has broken Box Office records and stirred a debate.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The movie has enraged America’s liberals, who launched what amounts to a smear campaign against Eastwood, Kyle and Bradley Cooper, who plays Kyle. Liberals offered the same old arguments against the Iraq war: it was a lie.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But how would Kyle be responsible for such a lie? Like any professional armed force, the US military executes whatever mission the government asks of it. Liberals should ask themselves: Had Kyle been an Afghanistan war hero, would that have made Eastwood’s movie Oscar material?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Liberals’ weak attack does not mean American Sniper was free of problematic themes.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In Eastwood’s movie, Kyle’s heroism did not spring out of patriotism, but was rather the culmination of an abusive father, who threatened his two boys with violence, should they not stand up to bullies at school and “finish” them. Before becoming a Navy SEAL, Kyle was depicted as disturbingly violent. He assaulted his brother in an argument, and beat a man he busted sleeping with his girlfriend.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Kyle’s decision to join the Navy SEALs was not due to his understanding of world affairs, even though Eastwood had him watching the news of Al-Qaeda’s double attack on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salam. Kyle seemingly joined the military because he was forced to hang up his rodeo boots and would have been unemployed otherwise. And even though the movie showed Mr. and Mrs. Kyle disturbed when watching the 9/11 attacks live on CNN, that bit was irrelevant because Kyle had already been a SEAL.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And so Kyle found himself on rooftops in Iraq, taking out whoever tried to kill American troops, Iraqis or non-Iraqis. Iraqis called him the Devil. He called them savages. Fair enough. Political incorrectness is hardly the worst outcome of wars.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">More problematic were the elements that Eastwood incorporated as part of Kyle’s legend. That Kyle killed to protect US troops is fine. That people thought it was the number of kills — over 160, as cited by one of the characters — is the problem. So what if Kyle scored the most kills? The American military could have decimated thousands of Iraqis in seconds if it wanted to.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The reason snipers like Kyle were deployed was to minimize the number of casualties while American troops pursued Al-Qaeda fighters in Western Iraq. Eastwood missed this fundamental point and tried to create in Kyle a legend for killing more “bad guys” than anybody else.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eastwood also tried to load his movie with right-wing conservative clichés. In a discussion with a fellow soldier, Kyle said he was fighting for “God, country and family.” He was shown carrying a Bible in his chest pocket while in battle. But why would that make of Kyle a legend?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to the Department of Defense, 2.5 million Americans served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Were all those people fighting for God? Did all of them carry the Bible on the battlefield? And of the many US lives Kyle saved through his sniping, did he differentiate between believers and non-believers, Bible-carriers and the non-Bible-carriers? Did Kyle refuse to save the lives of his gay brothers-in-arms?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The answer to all these questions is no. Kyle became a legend for saving the lives of a diverse US Army whose soldiers came from different ethnic backgrounds; an army of hetero and homosexual men and women; an army of theists and non-theists, and an army of conservatives and liberals.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Chris Kyle was an American hero, but not the only one. There were hundreds of others who saved the lives of their fellow servicemen and women and won high decorations for their valor. Superimposing a Bible-carrying, Christian family-man hero on US servicemen and women does the US military a disservice.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Finally, Eastwood’s biggest blunder was turning a victim of America’s gun culture into a gun hero. In one scene, Kyle is shown playing with a revolver jokingly with his wife, pointing it at her belly, then nonchalantly leaving it on a high surface in a house with preteen kids.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The National Rifle Association’s motto is: “the only one who can stop a bad guy with gun is a good guy with a gun.” How more able and skilled with guns could one be than Chris Kyle, who was still shot by a mentally disturbed veteran?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eastwood conveniently leaves Kyle’s death out of his film. It is ironic how the war hero, who survived four deployments in Iraq, was eventually killed in the safety of gun-land Texas. It would have been a great homage to Kyle had the movie covered his death in order to raise public awareness about America’s hurtful gun culture.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eastwood, the patriot whose act at the Republican National Convention in 2012 saw him pretend the president of the United States was a chair, missed the opportunity to use the life and death of Chris Kyle to address a problem that has fallen victim to Washington’s partisanship and the NRA’s lobbying muscle.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-is-wrong-with-american-sniper.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-8674486448876641519Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:25:00 +00002015-01-19T09:25:27.560-05:00On Muslims: lessons from Charlie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aQSO7e6ngHA/VL0TsZC4S1I/AAAAAAAADAo/gWh5UkpMDyY/s1600/000_nic6407609.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aQSO7e6ngHA/VL0TsZC4S1I/AAAAAAAADAo/gWh5UkpMDyY/s1600/000_nic6407609.jpg" height="508" width="840" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentary/564693-on-muslims-lessons-from-charlie"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">NOW</span></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not all Muslims are terrorists, but most of them do not support, or understand, freedom of expression. While they joined the world in condemning the Charlie Hebdo massacre, they could not hide their frustration with the cartoons they deemed offensive, which forced them to explain the “motives” behind the crime, and therefore stand out as supporters of “freedom, but...”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Muslims should never apologize for the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Every society produces rogue elements. Muslim terrorists — including all of Al-Qaeda, its franchises and offshoots — are statistically insignificant in a world population of over 1 billion adherents of Islam.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The problem, however, is Muslims’ inability to comprehend the founding principles of modern post-Enlightenment society. Muslims are not the only ones with this deficiency, but they are the group whose majority, rather than fringe, lives with such failure.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Following the massacre, the majority of Muslims (hereafter Muslims for short) looked uneasy about the slogan “Je suis Charlie.” They expressed sorrow over the crime, but they just can’t forgive the dead cartoonists, a grudge unbefitting a faith the very name of which means peace.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Muslims therefore invented “Je suis Ahmed,” referring to the French Muslim policeman shot by the terrorists. Then, with support from Westerners with a problematic understanding of the world, Muslims started raising the slogan “I am not Charlie,” arguing that the cartoonists had been bigots.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then came the big guns; Muslim intellectuals argued that poverty, lack of jobs, Islamophobia and Western insensitivity were among the reasons behind the crime.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some writers even tried to “put the attack in context,” saying that since the West had oppressed Muslims for a long time, and because US drones rain death on Muslim combatants and non-combatants alike, and with Israel building settlements in Muslim lands, a Muslim reaction was inevitable. It is war, some argued: “the pen is mightier than the sword” and "can be just as vicious,” thus transforming the dead cartoonists from unknown artists to combatants in an imagined war on Islam. When French cartoonists become combatants, killing them becomes justified.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then came wacko Muslims like Al-Jazeera’s Islamist anchor Ahmed Mansour, who berated Muslims for "apologizing" for the massacre. Instead, he blamed the “Crusader West” for the ongoing bloodbath.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Muslim justifications were unconvincing.&nbsp;If the attack was about jobs,&nbsp;two of the 12 victims — Charlie Hebdo’s copyeditor,&nbsp;Algerian-born Mustapha Ourrad, and Moroccan-born policeman Ahmed Merabet — were Muslim. This means that 17% of the victims, all employed, were Muslim, which is proportionately higher than the estimated 5-10% that Muslims constitute in France’s overall population.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If social integration in the West is the issue, then what made American Imam Anwar al-Awlaki leave the comfort of his life in Northern Virginia and move to Yemen, where he became the world’s leading terrorist before America “droned” him?&nbsp;One of Awlaki's disciples, Muslim-American Major Nidal Hassan, won the US Army's trust and received a security clearance, only to later gun down his brothers-in-arms at Fort Hood, Texas. The Tzarnaev brothers, who enjoyed equal legal and socioeconomic status as do all Americans, bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If poverty is the issue,&nbsp;then the world will have to explain why&nbsp;South American immigrants in the US or Indian immigrants in Europe never go on shooting rampages. And speaking of poverty and terror always reminds us that the world’s worst terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, was a millionaire.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Men and women anywhere can turn violent at any time. During WWI, German-Americans and British-Americans often stabbed each other in the US. Massacres have been committed randomly, from California's Charles Manson half a century ago to Connecticut's Adam Lanza in 2012.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Muslims are not responsible for Charlie Hebdo’s massacre. They are, however, responsible for their reactions. Instead of joining the world in endorsing “Je suis Charlie” as a symbol of freedom of expression, they want to censor the expression of whatever they dislike or disapprove of. As a result, Muslims condemned the crime but stopped short of endorsing freedom.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To the Muslim mind, “respect” for beliefs requires regulation of free speech, like slander. In fact, many Muslims argue that Mohammed is more important to them than their parents, unable to differentiate between private people, like their mothers and fathers, and public ones, like their prophet.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No one owns Mohammed. He came with a universal message. Those who accept his calling can live by his rules. Those who do not are by no means required to “respect” those rules or beliefs. This is how freedom of worship works in modern society, as does the freedom to not worship.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In fact, it is Islam whose teachings are offensive to Judaism and Christianity, accusing them of being creeds with fake books and murky beliefs.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In any case, Muslim outrage is tribal rather than religious. If it were religious, the world would have heard Muslims complain against the vast quantity of art depicting God — the same God of all monotheistic religions — in human image; a clear blasphemy in Islam. If Muslims were keen to censor whatever disagrees with their beliefs, they would have objected to negative cartoons of Moses and Jesus, both of whom Islam reveres as prophets like Mohammed.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The&nbsp;imagined war on Islam clearly has nothing to do with religion. It is the Muslims' rage against their inability to reconcile their society with modern norms and their failure to uproot tribalism, a configuration that stands at odds with modern concepts like liberty.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The sooner Muslims look inward and realize their shortcomings, the faster they will find themselves on the same page as the rest of the planet and opposed not only to the acts of terrorists, but to the oppressive and bloody message of terrorists as well.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/01/on-muslims-lessons-from-charlie.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-3729087526772827823Wed, 14 Jan 2015 02:15:00 +00002015-01-13T21:16:25.738-05:00Washington’s IS policy hinges on Iran deal<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Until Iran decides whether to take Washington up on a deal over its nuclear programme, the US will go out of its way not to step on any Iranian interests. In other words, to do as little as possible.</b></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-90Qwe_IDM7U/VLXRLJmgL8I/AAAAAAAADAM/wXhhdtHDTcY/s1600/265.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-90Qwe_IDM7U/VLXRLJmgL8I/AAAAAAAADAM/wXhhdtHDTcY/s1600/265.png" height="460" width="840" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br /></b><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/politics/5150e357-f160-47e6-b780-b584c92a5e53">Al-Araby Al-Jadeed</a></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">More than six months after Washington announced its intention to train and equip "moderate elements in the Syrian opposition", the programme has yet to start. If the US's track record is anything to go by, even when it does get off the ground, it is unlikely to offer much in the way of development.<br /><br />Since the Syrian rebellion broke out in March 2011, US President Barack Obama has talked a lot, but done little. He drew red lines warning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against using chemical weapons, but did nothing when the US military said it had happened. That reportedly prompted Anthony Blinken of the US National Security Council, to angrily object that "a superpower does not bluff."<br /><br />Obama's thinking on Syria, however, has remained consistently anti-interventional, whatever his words. He even opposes indirect military confrontation by arming and training moderate anti-Assad forces, although the US has been engaged in an extremely moderate programme to this effect since 2011, by primarily offering non-lethal aid.<br /><br />Why? "[He] does not wish to cross Iran on this matter," <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/syria-the-gutman-report#.VKwZVhdoj-w.facebook">according</a> to former US diplomat Frederic Hof, who worked on Syria between 2010 and 2013. <br /><br />The meltdown of the Iraqi military in Mosul when it was overrun by the Islamic State group (IS, formerly Isis) in June, however, forced Washington's hand to some extent. F-18s were quickly scrambled to take out IS targets in Iraq and later Syria. A US plan followed and included Obama's pledge to set up a National Guard for Iraq's Sunni tribes, independent of Baghdad's federal government. Washington also promised to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels.<br /> <br />Roll out, roll back<br /> <br />No sooner had the administration finished "rolling out" its plan to defeat IS, than it started to roll it back, again for fear of "crossing Iran." Even though Tehran has sponsored the creation of non-state Shia militias in Iraq, it opposed the US doing the same for Iraq's beleaguered Sunnis. Washington caved in, and as a result, IS looks a more attractive option for Sunni tribes.<br /> <br />Much of this has to do with the ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran over the latter’s nuclear programme. In December, Obama promised that Iran could become a "regional power" if it accepted to transform its nuclear programme into a "modest" one. Until Tehran makes a decision on Obama's offer, the US president will remain unwilling to take steps in Iraq and Syria that he believes could jeopardise a possible deal. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />To keep Tehran happy, Washington also made fighting IS the sole mission of the Syrian force that it said it would help create. But what would Washington do if these same fighters, under US air cover, ever engaged with the Syrian army? Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel asked this question. The administration repsonse was: Resign.<br /> <br />US officials said they planned to ask for $500 million from Congress to train 5,000 moderate Syrian rebels in Turkey and Saudi Arabia in 2015. However, the real budget – according to the Congressional Continuing Resolution (CR) – is much lower and stands at $225 million, which begs the question: How can such a small force with minimal training and a low budget stand up to the IS, whose budget – if reports are to be believed - is almost ten times bigger?<br /><br />The answer seems to be that what happened in Iraq will happen in Syria. The "Train and Equip" programme was not designed to create any real Sunni force, because that might anger Shia Iran. Washington's training programmes are primarily stunts designed to ease the pressure from the US's Arab allies and Turkey, who made their participation in an anti-IS campaign dependant on Washington's support for anti-Assad rebels.<br /> <br />No resolve, only questions<br /> <br />In fact, since the programme was announced, Washington has suspended the minimal aid it used to give Syria's rebels because of their defeats to IS and al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front. Apparently Washington expects Syria's amateur fighters to take on the better-trained and equipped Islamist groups, but when they fail, they are punished rather than offered more support.<br /><br />Obama's heart is simply not in the war on IS. Washington was reluctant to even give "Operation Inherent Resolve" its name, fearful that naming the campaign might rekindle unpleasant memories of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<br /><br />When the US defence department finally named the campaign, it informed US service members that they would not receive any military medals under that name. Instead, US troops who show valour or face injury would be decorated with medals under the Global War on Terror, George Bush's war that Obama once said he had ended.<br /><br />Obama clearly pins his hopes on a deal with Iran, which he thinks he can subcontract to finish IS. But this policy only raises further questions.<br /> <br />How can a Shia regional power, with Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, possibly defeat a Sunni group entrenched in an area with a predominantly Sunni population? How can Syrian or Iraqi forces with minimum resources, face IS when the US-trained Iraqi army, with its $7 billion annual budget melted away at the first whiff of battle?</span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/01/washingtons-is-policy-hinges-on-iran.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-1355878920415134578Mon, 05 Jan 2015 19:19:00 +00002015-01-05T14:19:23.990-05:00Egypt, the Gulf and Washington’s looking glass lobbying distortions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uGhEXazd-qM/VKrjncK69fI/AAAAAAAAC_w/lD8pyNneywg/s1600/265.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uGhEXazd-qM/VKrjncK69fI/AAAAAAAAC_w/lD8pyNneywg/s1600/265.jpg" height="460" width="740" /></a></div><div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/d7775af5-895e-4969-887c-53cb18ca0f26">Al-Araby Al-Jadeed</a></span></div><div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In May 2011, Judith Miller wrote an angry&nbsp;<a href="http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=7123#.VJjrt14DsY" style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">column&nbsp;</a>in the New York Post.<br /><br />“Since Mubarak’s ouster, the transitional military council ruling Egypt has allowed Salafists to attack Copts with impunity,” Miller said. Apparently unimpressed with Egypt’s military, she quoted a US expert as saying that liberal reformers increasingly fear that Salafists “are emerging with the military’s blessing – perhaps in an alliance to enable the military to continue ruling or to block the emergence of a truly democratic government”.</span></div><table border="0" sizcache="9" sizset="0" style="color: black; float: right; height: 196px; line-height: 24px; width: 272px;"><tbody sizcache="9" sizset="0"><tr><td width="12"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></td><td width="30"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/Content/english/images/englishcaption.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="30" /></span></td><td class="qautoClass" style="font-size: 18px !important; line-height: 20px !important; position: relative;" width="230"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cairo’s officers would topple Morsi under the guise of popular revolt ... The Gulf, for its part, would take care of Washington.</span></strong></span><a class="TweetIcon" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Cairo%E2%80%99s%20officers%20would%20topple%20Morsi%20under%20the%20guise%20of%20popular%20revolt%20...%20The%20Gulf,%20for%20its%20part,%20would%20take%20care%20of%20Washington.&amp;via=alaraby_en" style="border: 0px; bottom: 10px; display: block; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 20px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: 0px; text-align: right; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt=" " border="0" src="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/Content/english/images/tweetqouto.png" height="20" style="border: none; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;" width="58" /></span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />Three years later, Miller – the self-styled proponent of Egyptian democracy and opponent of the military – was sitting in Cairo in what she described “a rare, two-hour meeting” between “a small group of American national security specialists and journalists” and then “Egypt’s de facto ruler” General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Miller&nbsp;<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/04/23/egypt-leader-urges-america-to-reinstate-military-aid-for-fight-against-terror/" style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">reported&nbsp;</a>on Fox News website that Sisi “repeatedly stressed Egypt’s desire for strong ties with, and support from, Washington”.<br /><br />A month after her shift from bashing Egypt’s military to praising it, Miller&nbsp;<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/05/30/analysis-surprising-allies-against-terror-in-middle-east/" style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">penned&nbsp;</a>another piece for Fox News – probably using her notes from that same meeting with Sisi but this time referring to him as “senior Egyptian officials” – in which she said that these “officials” described Egyptian-Israeli cooperation as “excellent” and “never better”.<br /><br />Miller, a known supporter of Israel, it now seemed was trying to give Sisi and his junta the Israeli seal of approval.<br /><br />But what changed? What made Miller turn from an advocate of democracy in Egypt into a cheerleader for the military?<br /><br />When Egyptians took to the street en masse to demand the toppling of former President Hosni Mubarak, the pro-Mubarak lobby in Washington was caught off guard. Mubarak’s Arab Gulf supporters hastily deployed their public relations assets in a bid to make Washington speak against the revolution.<br /><br /><strong>Wielding the lobby weapon</strong><br /><br />Former US Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner, a lobbyist with Paton Boggs whose documents show frequent contacts between Wisner and the government of the United Arab Emirates, volunteered to mediate between Washington and Mubarak.<br /><br />(In 2013, it may be worth pointing out, the UAE outspent all other foreign nations in lobbying in Washington, paying over $14 million. Saudi Arabia came fourth with $11 million. Qatar spent a meagre $350,000, ranking close to the bottom, just above Thailand, which ranked 46th.)<br /><br />After visiting Cairo in early 2011, Wisner&nbsp;<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/07/administration-drop-kicks-ambassador-remarks-mubarak-echoes-sentiment/" style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">said&nbsp;</a>in Munich that transition in Egypt required Mubarak to stay “while we sort our way toward a future”, and encouraged the international community to play a “protective and encouraging role”.<br /><br />President Barack Obama’s administration instantly distanced itself from the former diplomat, saying that while it had sent a message to Mubarak with Wisner, the former ambassador’s public statements did not reflect Washington’s position that clearly supported the revolution.<br /><br />It later transpired that – while US officials positioned themselves as champions of democracy – they had in fact taken their position after close consultation with the Egyptian military establishment, which had in turn forced Mubarak to appoint Omar Suleiman as his vice-president. Suleiman got his short tenure for the single purpose of announcing Mubarak’s resignation. Cairo’s officers were calling the shots from behind the scenes, and had assured Washington that America’s interests would be safeguarded should Mubarak fall. Egypt’s military was, in effect, out of sync with Mubarak’s Gulf supporters.<br /><br />But now that Egypt’s military had let the people break the government, they had to own it. This is when Washington leaned on Cairo’s officers to “share” government with other groups, mainly through the ballot box. With few allies, Egypt’s military had to listen to the US. Sisi was the first to join Mohamed Morsi’s government as Defence Minister, and took an oath of office before him.<br /><br />Yet sharing power with an elected Muslim Brotherhood government proved unbearable for the military. Washington started treating Morsi as the actual ruler and even extended him an invitation to the White House in late 2012. That was when Egypt’s military broke ranks with its American partners, accused America of supporting Islamists, and went out shopping for new allies, which the Egyptian junta found among some Arab Gulf governments.<br /><br />The plan of the Gulf and Egypt’s military was simple. Cairo’s officers would topple Morsi under the guise of popular revolt that was carefully planned by the military. The Gulf, for its part, would take care of Washington. Between late 2012 and mid-2013, lobbyists swarmed the American capital looking for journalists, think tankers and propagandists. This is when journalists like Miller, known for her erroneous reporting in the New York Times in 2002 on Saddam Hussein’s presumed weapons of mass destruction, abandoned Egypt’s democracy and found her solace in Sisi and the military.<br /><br />Sisi and his Gulf sponsors were not satisfied with the Obama administration that found itself – under lobbying pressure – continuously and embarrassingly reversing its previous positions on Egypt. Obama eventually restricted his Egypt policy to three “core interests”: The security of Egypt’s border with Israel, continued navigation in the Suez Canal, and overflight rights for American military aircraft. Sisi delivered on all three.<br /><br /><strong>A voice in the wilderness</strong><br /><br />Despite neutralising the Obama administration, Sisi wanted to mute every criticism in Washington. But not all journalists and think tankers could be “contacted” by lobbying firms.<br /><br />Michelle Dunne, a former diplomat and one of Washington’s most respected experts on Egypt, had created the Rafik Hariri Center at the Atlantic Council with a donation from Bahaa Hariri, the son of Lebanon’s late prime minister. But after she signed a petition and testified before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee urging the United States to suspend military aid to Egypt, calling Mr. Morsi’s ouster a ‘military coup’, Bahaa Hariri called the Atlantic Council to complain,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html?_r=3" style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">according&nbsp;</a>to the New York Times.<br /><br />Dunne was replaced by former Ambassador to Egypt Francis Ricciardone, “who had been earlier criticized by conservatives and human rights activists for being too deferential to the Mubarak government,” the Times reported.<br /><br />Yet Dunne did not disappear. She went back to her job at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and continued criticizing Sisi and calling on Washington to suspend aid to his military to make him respect human rights.<br /><br />After failing to suade or silence Dunne, Sisi’s sponsors were left with one option: To cut her from Egypt. By doing so, Sisi hoped to undermine Dunne’s credibility as an expert on the country. Dunne was invited to a conference in Egypt. When she reached Cairo’s airport, passport control stamped her passport and let her in, only to follow her shortly after and tell her that her “name [wa]s in the computer”. Dunne was told she could not access Egypt anymore and was put on a flight back to Washington.<br /><br />“[M]y deportation is just the latest and least important of many steps toward an authoritarianism much nastier than that of the Mubarak era,” Dunne&nbsp;<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-egypt-attract-investment-while-becoming-ever-more-authoritarian/2014/12/21/06400a6a-87be-11e4-b9b7-b8632ae73d25_story.html" style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">wrote&nbsp;</a>in The Washington Post. “I am safely at home, but there are an increasing number of Egyptian rights activists, journalists and politicians who have been forced into exile in the past several months and may never be able to return, not to mention thousands of political detainees,” she concluded.<br /><br />Perhaps Dunne is one of those analysts lobbyists cannot buy. Perhaps she is not the only one. And perhaps she will continue to speak her mind freely for Egypt’s democracy and against its emerging autocracy.<br /><br />But in Washington, lobbying efforts by the Egyptian government and on its behalf can be expected to intensify over the coming two years. When Obama leaves the White House in 2017, and knowing how the American system works, there will be no bad blood left between Washington and Cairo. The US will then welcome Sisi back to the fold with open arms. Talk of Egyptian democracy will have been confined to a distant past. Any tension between the two countries might be remembered as a mere hiccup.</span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/01/egypt-gulf-and-washingtons-looking.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-5766481400404433609Mon, 05 Jan 2015 13:46:00 +00002015-01-05T08:46:30.260-05:00The Islamization of Lebanon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DmQaAtfm5Ms/VKqVWZevqwI/AAAAAAAAC_g/G0gqpk67y7g/s1600/proclamation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DmQaAtfm5Ms/VKqVWZevqwI/AAAAAAAAC_g/G0gqpk67y7g/s1600/proclamation.jpg" height="508" width="740" /></span></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564615-the-islamization-of-lebanon">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In 1982, Catholic Christians made up around one quarter of the population of the town of Baalbek. At school, our favorite teacher was Jean-Pierre, or Jan as most of us called him. He taught us math and science, was a talented pianist; he even played accordion on school outings.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the late 1980s, he took a job as a radio host. When the holiday season came, he broadcast Christmas carols, which angered Shiite thugs — most probably from Hezbollah or Islamic Amal — who invaded his studio, destroyed his equipment and kidnapped him. After his release, he went into self-exile somewhere in Europe. He later told me that many years after his emigration, he made one trip to Baalbek to attend his mother’s funeral. Even then, he was told he was not welcome. He left and never looked back.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is the story of Lebanon’s shrinking non-Muslim population.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When the French created Lebanon in 1920, they designed it as a Christian country. To dilute the Sunni majority in its Levantine territory, Paris created five states: A Christian Lebanon, an Alawite state in northwestern Syria, a Druze state in southern Syria, and two land-locked Sunni states in Damascus and Aleppo.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For Lebanon, France borrowed the emblem of the Maronite Church, the Cedar, and put it on a French flag, which was redrawn in 1943 as the Lebanese flag we know today. The French carefully calculated Christians made up over half of Lebanon’s population, with Shiites constituting one quarter and securing a comfortable non-Sunni majority.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 1987, my family moved to Beirut, where we have owned property since 1965. The title lists us as the fourth owners since the land was first deeded to Druze Al-Hamra family, who gave their name to the capital’s famous street.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the alley where we lived, there were two buildings with 21 apartments between them, only three of which were inhabited by Muslim families. The families that populated the alley included Maronite Bassil, Shartouni and Maani; Catholic Touma; Armenian Orthodox Qadayan; Greek Orthodox Bekhaazi, Nassar, Zewaneh, Saba, Majdalani and Abu-Dayyeh; Druze Monzer; and Jewish Hajjar.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When rounds of fighting between the various militias in west Beirut intensified, when Shiite Amal knocked on doors seeking Palestinians while Druze Jaish Shaabi and Sunni Murabitoun invaded houses looking for Shiites, the families in our alley devised a cunning tactic: they hid in the apartment that they figured was least prone to be hit by random shelling. When militia thugs knocked on the door, they sent the men who belonged to the same sect as the invading charlatans to answer. Druze would deflect their militiamen, and so did Shiites and Sunnis.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With political, economic and social nooses tightening, non-Muslims left west Beirut throughout the Civil War. They moved mostly to Christian enclaves in the eastern part of the country. In their stead came Muslims; mainly Shiites who were fleeing the inferno of southern Lebanon.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When the Civil War ended, the displaced Christians never came back. Syria’s Hafez Assad — Lebanon’s actual rule — propped up his Muslim allies, particularly Shiites, at the expense of Christians, who called the 1990s the decade of “Christian Frustration.” From the diaspora, Sunni billionaires like the Hariri family and Shiite millionaires, mainly from Africa, funneled money into the country, often buying out Christian stakes. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Between 1920 and 1975, Lebanon’s Christian population had swelled, at times infused by Christians like the Greek Orthodox, who relocated from troubled Palestine. But by 1990, Christians were bruised — their real estate outside of the eastern enclaves had been occupied and their population decimated.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">By betting on the wrong regional and international horses, Christians found themselves beaten. They reluctantly accepted the constitution as amended by the Taef Agreement, which made them equal, rather than dominant, partners in the country that the French had made in their image.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 2005, Christians — especially the followers of lawmaker Michel Aoun — made further mistakes. Instead of caucusing with the non-Shiite underdogs, Aoun took a shortcut and started using Shiite power to beat his Christian and Sunni allies. Aoun then became a junior partner in an alliance with a much stronger Shiite party.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Aoun was not the only shortsighted leader among the Christians. His rivals, those who stayed in March 14, proved worse. Instead of propping up March 14 for strategic purposes, they battled other March 14 factions to win small concessions. Druze Walid Jumblatt learned a lesson: March 14 was too unreliable for him to use as a strategic counterweight to Hezbollah. In 2008, he conceded and has since sat out the regional war between Sunnis and Shiites.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jumblatt is the savviest Levantine politician. He understood that the problem of non-Muslims was structural rather than tactical. Decades of wars have taken their toll on non-Muslims, whose numbers have dwindled and their power, both economic and political, has weakened. Jumblatt now pines for the good old days when Druze and Christians, whom he calls “Red Indians,” reigned supreme.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) ravaging the Syrian countryside, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Al-Nusra deploying on Lebanon’s eastern border and with Shiite Hezbollah overrunning the once-Christian southern suburb of Beirut and now dominating the entire country, Lebanon and Syria are destined to become nations with absolute Muslim majorities.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is nothing wrong with the Islamization of Lebanon per se, but it will mean that diversity is lost and tolerance minimized. Baalbek had already become intolerant of the likes of my teacher, Jan, and his Christmas carols long ago. Southern Lebanon started to go dry in the 1980s. And not to be outbid by Shiites, Sunnis in Tripoli and Sidon censored alcohol and banned its ads. Friend and fellow columnist Michael Young explains&nbsp;<a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564591-going-dry" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a>&nbsp;how Muslim areas of Beirut are now drying up, as well.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Islamization in Lebanon is creeping into Christian areas. Many Muslims have moved to Achrafieh and other neighborhoods that were once counted in the Christian column.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My friend Sam, a Greek Catholic in his late 50s now, hails from Tyre where he was born and raised. He fondly speaks about his memories in the southern town that, like Baalbek, has become completely Shiite today. Sam now lives in Beit Mery. With him, I share memories of how the predominantly Greek Orthodox Ras Beirut is now turning into an Islamic hood.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the alley where I grew up in, only three of the 21 households are now Christian. The youngest of the three is past his retirement age. His two sons relocated to Rabyeh. His daughter moved to Geneva. The two other Christian households are widows in their 80s. When their day comes, their children in Europe and whoever else remains of the Christian enclave will remember our alley with a smile. When these children are gone, memories will fade away, and Lebanon will have become just another state in the Muslim Middle East.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">newspaper. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-islamization-of-lebanon.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-1507431180963914863Wed, 24 Dec 2014 19:24:00 +00002014-12-24T14:24:40.373-05:00No peace on earth with religions of hate<div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564576-no-peace-on-earth-with-religions-of-hate">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When I wrote that the Shiites are committing a grave mistake by oppressing the Sunnis in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, at least since 2003, almost every Shiite I know countered by accusing me of bias: “How about the Shiites of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan? Why don’t you write about them?”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To the sectarian mind, it is impossible to argue against one injustice without arguing against every injustice. Since every sect can find injustice against its coreligionists somewhere on earth, sometime in history, sects have grown accustomed to using victimhood as a license to kill and tyrannize rivals.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This twisted logic is driving hatred between the Sunnis, the Shiites and other Middle Eastern sects. Try to argue with a Christian about the moral obligation of siding with the victims of Bashar Assad’s chemical, chlorine and barrel bombs and she will immediately fire back by saying: “What about the nuns of Maaloula?”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Shiites, for example, have kept 14 centuries of anti-Sunni hatred alive by annually marking the death of their third imam, Hussein. I have tried to reason with Shiite believers about the point of keeping such a bloody memory alive. Other than agitating anti-Sunni sentiments, the story of Hussein’s death in Karbala serves little or no purpose. Are the Shiites looking for compensation? Are today’s Sunnis responsible for the errors of the Umayyads 1,334 years ago? And is there anything the Sunnis can do for the Shiites to let it go?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not to be outbid by the Shiite hate rhetoric, the Sunnis have similar hate-spewing tales. The Sunnis imagine the Shiites as aliens planted by a world conspiracy to undermine the otherwise harmonious Islamic Ummah. Some Sunnis argue that a fictional Jewish Yemenite, Abdullah bin Saba’, penetrated the Muslims to divide them by creating the Shia.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To the Sunni mind, the Safavids, Magi, Persian Iran are in bed with Israel and the West to undermine Islam. The Shiites level similar accusations against an imagined Sunni-Jewish alliance. Both Sunnis and Shiites spew hate against the Jews, who in turn have no love lost for either.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Middle Eastern sects hate each other deeply despite attempts to hide it. A sectarian person will typically start by swearing that she hates divisions and that she has friends from other sects and does not discriminate. But when hanging out with their own, the Christians will spare no words of disgust against Muslims, typically depicting them as “dirty.” Sunnis think of Shiites as low lives, while the Shiites think of both as bullies that need to be cut down to size.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sectarian bigots also hide behind nationalism. In Lebanon, they usually express pride in their country, the army and the flag, only unwittingly. Lebanon’s Shiites pledge allegiance to Lebanon, but also think it is their duty to defend the Shiite shrines of Zaynab and Ruqiyyah in Damascus and that of Ammar Bin Yasser in Raqqa.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lebanon’s Christians, the avowed sovereignty defenders, see no contradiction when the Maronite patriarch makes trips to Syria and Israel “to connect” with Christians there. They often think of Lebanese Christians and Levantine Christians interchangeably, and lobby in world capitals accordingly.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Like the Christians and Shiites who mix nationalism with regional identity, Lebanon’s Sunnis have developed regional allegiances. Iraq’s late tyrant Saddam Hussein has emerged as a hero in Sunni quarters. Syria’s terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra is winning Sunni hearts. If the Shiites can have their militias, like Hezbollah and Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas, why should the Sunnis not have their own?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, those who understand the concepts of state, democracy, sovereignty and citizenship are statistically insignificant. The majority of the Levant is populated by sectarian people who — despite all their talk about tolerance and coexistence — are, in fact, bigots locked in a zero-sum game. They are more interested in seeing their sect beat other sects than in building good governments.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sects falsely think they are fighting existential battles, and that if their sect wins, justice will prevail, unaware that in this vicious cycle of hate and revenge, one sect’s victory is simply the defeat of another. As long as there are defeated sects, there will be injustice that will result in revenge and more blood. This is how the cycle of violence self-propagates. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In anger management groups, participants are encouraged to vent their feelings. Once they air their frustrations, it becomes easier for them to cope. Levantine sects were designed to thrive on fear and hatred and to perpetuate violence. Unless their foundations are altered, it will remain impossible to reconstitute the region with any semblance of tranquility, and there can be no peace on earth, at least in the Middle East.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">newspaper. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/12/no-peace-on-earth-with-religions-of-hate.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-6420718243771280801Fri, 19 Dec 2014 13:38:00 +00002014-12-19T08:38:43.600-05:00Iran's dreams of grandeur at play in nuclear talks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZG3THIO81B0/VJQqNwI78ZI/AAAAAAAAC-k/vBKs98C1ceQ/s1600/IranUSNov24Vienna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZG3THIO81B0/VJQqNwI78ZI/AAAAAAAAC-k/vBKs98C1ceQ/s1600/IranUSNov24Vienna.jpg" height="450" width="840" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/politics/dcc57bb6-436b-4a56-8878-edb3eba19e54">al-Araby al-Jadeed</a></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Despite crippling economic difficulties Iran is setting itself up to be the region's next major power, even before it gets the nuclear deal it has craved for.<br /><br />The resumption this week of overtime talks between the US, world powers and Iran in Geneva is an indication of just how far Washington has proven willing to go to secure a deal over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.<br /><br />With Barack Obama into the last two years of his presidency, a nuclear deal with Iran seems to have become a legacy question for the US president and is directly impacting US policy on Syria, Iran's close ally.<br /><br />It is not clear, however, how far Iran, which increasingly seems to see itself as in the stronger negotiating position, is itself willing to go to meet world demands to scale back the ambitions of its programme.<br /><br />The talks in Geneva, which started Monday with bilateral talks between Iran and the US and ended Wednesday with a summit of the whole P5+1 grouping of world powers – the US, UK, Germany, France, China and Russia – were the first negotiations since an extension was agreed in November when a deadline for agreement passed.<br /><br /><b>"Intense" talks</b><br /><br />The talks were "intense" and "useful", according to Iranian chief negotiator and deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, who said the teams were due to meet again in January.<br /><br />But so far, "useful" has not led far. The current negotiations – and their extension – is the result of an interim deal agreed back in November 2013 under which the Islamic Republic agreed to freeze parts of its programme in return for temporary and partial relief from international sanctions.<br /><br />This interim deal has so far proven the maximum extent of cooperation. Even though senior American and Iranian officials have started face-to-face talks for the first time since 1979, they have so far been talking past each other.<br /><br />A clue as to why came a few years back. When delegations from the P5+1 and Iran met in Baghdad in May 2012, Tehran's then top negotiator Saeed Jalili suddenly went off script: "What about Syria," he demanded to know.<br /><br />This was a year after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution which Iran's ally, Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, had turned into a bloody ordeal. The American and European delegations were caught off guard. They responded that they were not authorised to discuss issues other than Iran’s nuclear programme.<br /><br />Since then, Iran's negotiating team under former President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has been replaced by an arguably friendlier group under his successor Hassan Rouhani. Assad has succeeded – with heavy Iranian assistance – in rolling back many rebel advances. And US foreign policy under Obama has drifted to such an extent that a breakthrough deal with Iran is increasingly being seen as his only face-saving exit.<br /><br /><b>What about Syria?</b><br /><br />Even though the United States evaded Jalili's question on Syria in 2012, it took notice. Through Oman, former Under Secretary of State Bill Burns and National Security Council's Jake Sullivan opened a secret backchannel with Iran. By November 2013, secret diplomacy had borne fruit in the guise of the Geneva interim deal.<br /><br />But that's as far as it has gone. In his public appearances since, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has talked about a "paradigm shift" that mandates a revised western view of Tehran. The West, according to Zarif, has declined, while "the rest" – first and foremost Iran – have risen. The West should therefore recognise Iran's "right to enrich uranium" and acknowledge its interests throughout the Middle East.<br /><br />In return for such a revised position, Iran is willing to "promise" that it will not produce a nuclear bomb. Iran is also willing to step up and "stabilise" the region, a step that it depicted as a service to Washington and western capitals.<br /><br />A promise is not the basis for agreement, but Obama seems to believe that once the process of American rapprochement with Iran begins, it will take a life of its own and create a new dynamic. If Iran can open its oil-rich economy to American companies and at the same time do Washington's dirty and costly work of finishing off groups like the Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS), then that will be "two birds with one stone".<br /><br /><b>US compromises</b><br /><br />To make sure that nothing upsets Tehran in the meantime, Obama has forbidden direct or indirect military action against Assad. In Iraq, Obama has reneged on his promise to form – out of tribal fighters – a Sunni National Guard independent of Baghdad's Shia-dominated central government. In Lebanon, the least strategically important of the three, Washington had already succumbed to Iranian dominance through Hizballah.<br /><br />Yet despite Obama's concessions, Iran has refused to reciprocate. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei turned down offers for a "research oriented" nuclear programme, called such a scheme mere décor, and insisted on Iran’s "right" to enrich uranium on an industrial scale. The only safeguard the world has so far been assured of that Iran will not use its programme to make bombs is simply Iran's word, or Khamenei’s fatwa.<br /><br />With Iran dominant in Iraq and Lebanon, making inroads in Yemen through the Houthi movement, and with the Syrian regime holding up, Iran sees itself in a strong bargaining position. Tehran is seeking complete American concessions in these countries, essentially for the US and its regional allies to disown their embattled allies there.<br /><br /><b>New relationship</b><br /><br />Will it wash in Washington? Obama has shown an inclination to go against received wisdom in Beltway circles to pursue a deal with Iran. But Iran's position is proving harder to swallow for his European, Arab and Turkish allies. With Washington stepping back, Paris has played the role of spoiler in the interest of America's traditional allies.<br /><br />Still, in his remaining years in office, Obama may feel a deal with Iran can save a foreign policy legacy that otherwise has precious little to show for it. He is certainly pushing hard. He has communicated directly with Khamenei hinting at Iranian gains if Tehran concedes on its nuclear programme. Khamenei did not budge. Even Iran's distressed economy has not convinced the supreme leader of the urgency of reaching a deal and lifting sanctions. Instead, Khamenei has stuck to the defunct economic principle of self-sufficiency.<br /><br />Despite this rebuff, Obama still seems convinced by what he told Bloomberg News in March. "If you look at the Iranian behaviour," he said then, "they are strategic, they’re not impulsive." He added: "They have a worldview, and they see their interests, and they respond to costs and benefits."<br /><br />That rare glimpse into Obama's thinking on Iran suggests he is betting Tehran will agree to turn its nuclear programme into a face-saving research programme in return for Iran's reintegration into the world economy and the restoration of its regional and political partnership with America, similar to pre-1979 relations.<br /><br />If not, and at the very least, Obama will run down the clock on Iran, Syria, Iraq and IS. The longer the talks with Iran, the closer his exit from the White House. In January 2017, these crises will become someone else's problems. Obama will have managed to stick to his foreign policy slogan of "don’t do stupid stuff"; in this case perhaps better understood as, "don’t do anything at all".</span>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/12/irans-dreams-of-grandeur-at-play-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-3277461993813889174Tue, 09 Dec 2014 21:46:00 +00002014-12-09T16:46:39.053-05:00Welcome to the age of the Shiite<div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564512-welcome-to-the-age-of-the-shiite">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ramzi hails from a family of notable Iraqi Sunnis. At the University of Baghdad, he played the guitar and met my Shiite cousin. They both graduated from the School of Engineering with honors, tied the knot, and raised two children. During the Saddam years, when thugs ruled, Ramzi served in the military draft and kept a low profile.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With the outbreak of the civil war in 2007 and the rise in violence, Ramzi moved his family out of Iraq. In exile, he overstretched his resources and had to dip into his emergency reserves by selling part of the vast real estate that his ancestors had owned for centuries.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Iraq’s Shiite militias, however, had other ideas. They occupied his property and made it impossible for him to sell. They called Ramzi a Baathist and an Islamist terrorist, and used this pretext to justify their theft. A refined Sunni who disdains the uncultured Baathists and the wacko Islamists, Ramzi was now lumped in with both. The percentage of Sunnis in Baghdad has dropped from 25% in 2004 to 12% today. Trends suggest further Sunni erosion.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Welcome to the Age of the Shiite. If you are a Sunni who lives in the land that stretches between the Lebanese coast and the Iranian-Afghan border, you are doomed. If you are a secular Sunni, you must be a Baathist and you deserve the same punishment as Nazi war criminals. If you are a Sunni who sympathizes with Islamist parties, you must either be with the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Qaeda and its offshoots, all of which are terrorist. If you are a Sunni who has spent any time in the Gulf, you must be a Wahhabi with unacceptably austere views on religion.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since at least 1980, the Sunnis of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran – in their various political incarnations – have been brutally suppressed.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 1982, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad decimated the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama because they dared to challenge his absolute autocracy. Throughout the 1990s, Saddam Hussein and his regime were deservedly subjected to painful sanctions for his foolish invasion of Kuwait. Saddam was toppled in 2003, and Iraq’s Sunnis have been hunted down by Shiite militias ever since. A year later, one of the most moderate Sunni political leaders, Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri, was brutally assassinated in Beirut for defying Assad and his Lebanese Shiite allies. Hariri’s Sunni lieutenants were later killed while his son and successor Saad was forced into exile.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Iraq’s Sunnis have been the only ones able to project power. In 2007, America correctly enlisted this power to eject Al-Qaeda from Iraq. But America later committed a grave error by handing the Sunni victory, not to Sunnis, but to their Shiite opponents, who went back to oppressing the Sunnis, thus undoing previous successes.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In mistreating the Sunnis, Iran and Shiites are doing themselves a disfavor. Shiites cannot kill their way out of this crisis. They cannot rule the Sunnis by force, just as Sunnis were never able in the past to sideline the Shiites. Shiites and Sunnis have to talk, and either split their nations or rebuild their flimsy partnership.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For his part, President Barack Obama does not understand that the Sunnis will not trust Washington again, given their experience, especially now that Obama has become the American president who courted Islamist Iran. Obama mistakenly thinks that he can enlist Shiite Iran to defeat the Sunni Islamic State (ISIS). This will only add insult to injury and drive more Sunnis into the arms of ISIS.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Obama also confuses Al-Qaeda with ISIS. The first is an international terrorist group; the second is an Islamist mutation of Saddam’s brutality with little international ambition.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Addressing Sunni injustice is the key to solving the ISIS problem. The absence of moderate Saad Hariri will only give way to more Sunnis joining radical groups. Washington should try to guarantee his safety so that he returns to Beirut, and not on Hezbollah’s terms.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Iraq’s Sunnis are facing ethnic cleansing by Shiite militias and government forces. This must stop. And as long as Shiites have non-government militias, Sunnis will not settle for the formation of army battalions that are controlled by the Shiite government. Either every Iraqi sect gets a militia, or they all join an army controlled by a national unity government.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Syria’s Sunnis are the weakest; half of them living in refugee tents. Their political and military leadership is inexperienced, which gave the Iraqis a chance to take over.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sunnis will remain in a dire situation. Ramzi’s resources will remain strained and he might have to give up land that his family has owned for generations, only because he is Sunni. But he is lucky he does not live in a tent.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/12/welcome-to-age-of-shiite.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-426973095361512462Mon, 24 Nov 2014 22:13:00 +00002014-11-24T17:13:45.313-05:00Confessions of a former March 14er<div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564442-confessions-of-a-former-march-14er">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">March 14, 2007 was the only time I joined one of those massive protests in downtown Beirut. As I walked with friends through the crowds, a group of men with drums chanted: “All the Shia are dying because of (former Sunni Prime Minister) Fouad Siniora.” A friend from the Sunni Future Movement, who passed by us, knew that three of us were Shiite-born March 14 supporters. He apologized. We said we had not taken offense, only for him to respond: “But where are all the good Shia like you?”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I smiled and intuitively said: “Had we considered ourselves Shia, we’d have been in the other square (Riad Solh, where March 8 and allies had organized a sit in).” Thus was the story of the Shiite-born March 14ers. They were welcome as defectors and expected to put a national face on what was fundamentally a sectarian anti-Hezbollah alliance of Sunnis, Druze and Christians.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Like liberals from other sects, the Shiite-born March 14ers understood that they had to be realistic and pick between the lesser of two evils. They reasoned that March 14 were the underdogs, that their leaders were being killed, and that even though Lebanon under March 14 rule would not be a liberal democracy, it would still be better than the fascist theories of the “resistance society and state.”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Meanwhile, March 14 never ceased to underperform and disappoint. With every cabinet formation, March 14 leaders poked each other’s eyes for portfolios. With every election, their tickets would be formed at the last minute after endless bickering. To top it all, whenever they won a parliamentary majority, they raced to sell their advantage to March 8, often in return for insignificant concessions.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">March 14 never presented a governing platform with a five or a 10-year vision of how to grow the economy, create jobs, minimize corruption, push toward secularism or reform the constitution and state institutions.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The climax of March 14’s tribal nature came with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s visit to Damascus, where he made up with Syrian President Bashar Assad. After the visit, and overnight, scores of March 14 leaders and pundits abandoned their rhetoric on democracy and sovereignty and started preaching about the need to be realistic.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What March 14 never realized was that nationalism and democracy take time, patience and perseverance to gel. Shiite-born March 14ers like us had paid a higher price for our position: we had walked out on our tribe; we had exposed our families to immense social pressure in our villages and circles of relatives. And then, all of sudden, we were expected to go back to all those we had broken with over matters of principle and just say it had been a misunderstanding.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Personally, March 14 was not the first disappointment. As half-Iraqi, I had bet on Iraqis — the nation of 1 million engineers — and invested emotionally and intellectually in the toppling of Saddam Hussein, hoping democracy would take root. But democracy needs democrats and all we got in Iraq was a wave of looters followed by a wave of Shiite militia thugs, prompting Sunni terrorists to open shop in Iraq. The result was the creation of the most failing federal state in history.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I then put my old world, Lebanon and Iraq, behind and happily endorsed my American dream, only for the Syrians to take to the streets in defiance of one of the world’s most brutal regimes. I thus shelved my Iraqi and Lebanese disappointments, and because in its first months the Arab media had kept a lid on the Syrian revolution, I spent endless hours montaging footage of protests in Syrian cities, blogging and advocating for Syrian democracy.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But not to be outbid by the Iraqis or the Lebanese, Syria’s rebels took sectarianism to a new level. Their social media activity turned into anti-Shiite vitriol, which never offended or interested me. When Ahmed Al-Jarba, president of Syrian National Coalition, visited Washington, he instructed everyone to call him “Sheikh Ahmed.”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So here I found myself — after a decade of advocating for secularism, democracy and justice in the Middle East — still in the trenches with medieval sectarian and tribal leaders. I continue to support change in Syria and everywhere else. But I have no hope that anything good will come out of the Syrian inferno, regardless of Assad’s fate. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now is the time to be realistic. Now is the time to learn from the Iraqi, Lebanese and Syrian experiences: Non-sectarian, liberal citizens are few, helpless and irrelevant. The majority of individuals in the Middle East are members of tribes vying for control in a zero-sum game.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now is the time to look at groups the way they look at themselves: Christian, Sunni, Shiite, Alawite, Druze and the like. While some of them think coexistence is a solution, coexistence in fact deepens fault lines, which have been flaring up over the past millennia.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now is the time to suggest realistic solutions that might mitigate violence. Let all these communities disengage. Let each one live alone. The only regret is that, with sectarian states, non-sectarian people like me will find no place to call home. That is a problem we have get used to.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></span></em></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/11/confessions-of-former-march-14er.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-997511409817906849Mon, 10 Nov 2014 13:48:00 +00002014-11-10T08:51:25.377-05:00The case for a Christian Lebanon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Since almost everyone opposes the map that Sykes-Picot produced, why not reconsider and let every group decide its fate based on self-determination?</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IxwMRtYnvMo/VGDCJxrOKxI/AAAAAAAACx8/tqdDf4evelM/s1600/Francois_Picot_Mark_Sykes1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IxwMRtYnvMo/VGDCJxrOKxI/AAAAAAAACx8/tqdDf4evelM/s1600/Francois_Picot_Mark_Sykes1.jpg" height="580" width="840" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564377-the-case-for-a-christian-lebanon">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After the Scottish referendum for independence and the unofficial survey in Catalonia, there should be no shame if Christians in Lebanon hold a plebiscite over possible separation from Lebanon and the creation of a “small Lebanon” that many Christians have long craved.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On paper Christians are the majority in 11 districts, nine of them geographically contiguous and connected to Beirut’s predominantly Christian north and northeast. The creation of a contiguous Christian state might force Christians to retrench to the “small Lebanon” and agree to land and population swaps with non-Christian districts, just as Greece and Turkey did a century ago.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lebanese Christian sentiment about independence is not clear. Their emotions have been swinging between nostalgia for the enclave that they carved for themselves during the civil war, and the 10,452 square km that many of them talk about proudly, even if naively.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A secular Lebanon where all citizens are equal before the law is both optimal and impossible, and in a region where the various communities are asserting their ethnoreligious identities and openly celebrating them, shaming Christians for demanding to do the same is unfair.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even Turkey, the long-celebrated secular democracy, is now walking back both its secularism and its democracy, which means that it is about time for Christians of Lebanon, and maybe later the Levant in general, to rethink what government would be best for them.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Secularism in the Middle East isn’t about to happen now or in the near future. The best days of secularism, when Sunni autocrats like Gamal Abdul-Nasser and Saddam Hussein held power, are long gone. Now the region is left with non-national ethnoreligious groups, each vying for power and pushing for it.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even during the heyday of Sunni and Shiite secularism, Christians were treated as second-class citizens. Except for Lebanon, no constitution in the region — from Pakistan to Morocco — allows non-Muslims to become sovereigns or govern.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Christians should not settle for second best. They should not live in countries with “Allahu Akbar” on their flags, as in Iraq. They should not be forced to fight for the creation of a state whose emblem is a mosque, like Palestine. Christians of Egypt should not settle for a constitution that mandates a Muslim president. Alawites of Syria should not obtain edicts certifying they are Muslims to become presidents.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Kurds and others can openly assert their identity in territories where they are a majority and can turn religio-cultural symbols into national ones, Christians should be given a similar opportunity to make their own country in whatever image they like.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Judging from the behavior of Christian oligarchs and politicians, a Christian Lebanon would most probably not emerge as a liberal democracy. Nevertheless, disconnecting Christians from the dysfunctional region and from the Sunni-Shiite conflict that they have no stakes in would make the separation worthwhile.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The creation of a Christian Lebanon would be complicated. Even if Christians were to vote for independence, their secession would require disengagement from the current Lebanese state, splitting the debt on a per capita basis after deducting revenue of gold sales, and dividing mutual funds that cover medical care and retirement for public servants, judges and the military. It would require liquidating national facilities like Electricité du Liban and similarly settling the ownership of the national air carrier and cell phone companies.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Whatever state Christians made, were they able to keep it stable and capitalize on their enormous human resources and diaspora remittances, they could potentially create an unrivaled services sector and high tech industry. And if the state were to become prosperous, the trend of dwindling Christian population numbers might be reversed. Their prosperity might even encourage non-Christians in the region to emulate such an experiment.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A state for Christians would anathema for radical Muslims, which is why moderate Muslims should endorse one. And while secular liberals are expected to oppose such a scheme, in the same breath that they oppose Islamic states, liberals should realize that it is time to be realistic.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the not-so-distant past, when the Kurds of Iraq were fighting for independence, Iraqi secular nationalists opposed the Kurds. After 1992, when Iraqi Kurdistan became autonomous, many Iraqi liberals made a home for themselves in Kurdistan — many of them still do.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nations are not engraved in stone. They rise, fall and evolve. States that refuse to change often fail and end up paying a price much higher than that of planned disintegration.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-case-for-christian-lebanon.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-1382414892774120216Mon, 27 Oct 2014 15:19:00 +00002014-10-27T11:19:17.949-04:00Hezbollah is bruised<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o9YnDyBNfHg/VE5iV6BlJNI/AAAAAAAACxQ/jAuSnqv7X6A/s1600/hezbollahfunera.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o9YnDyBNfHg/VE5iV6BlJNI/AAAAAAAACxQ/jAuSnqv7X6A/s1600/hezbollahfunera.jpg" height="508" width="840" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564300-hezbollah-is-bruised">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Just as any war of attrition taxes a military force, large or small, Syria's war has taken a toll on Hezbollah. Unlike Bashar al-Assad or Iran's Ali Khamenei, who can mute dissent, Hezbollah's ability to project power relies on the support of Lebanon's Shiites.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />No public surveys are available that capture the sentiment of these Shiites. Hezbollah keeps a lid on the numbers of its fighters and casualties. Yet, anecdotal evidence suggests that Lebanon's Shiite population is thinning out. Families are searching for better lives away from the "society of resistance" and its perpetual war. In the extended Shiite family I hail from, only one of 11 men and five of 16 women, between the ages of 18 and 50, live in Lebanon today.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Hezbollah is a formidable military force. Its social, media and financial institutions are impressive. Yet the party realizes that, to maintain its edge, it has to nurture its supporters and their needs. After the 2006 July War against Israel, the party's leadership was so embarrassed by the destruction that had befallen the areas of its supporters that it had to deflect Shiite anger toward Lebanon's Sunnis and Druze, accusing them of conspiring against the Shiites to "force them to go back to the days when they worked as shoeshine boys."<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />The party's trick worked. In 2008, it led the military takeover of western Beirut, creating a fait accompli that overturned decisions taken by Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s cabinet that threatened the party while also forcing an end to a political deadlock that saw the creation of a unity government. Around the same time, US President George Bush and his French counterpart Jacques Chirac, both sworn enemies of Hezbollah and Assad, left office. That same year, Ankara sponsored indirect peace talks between Damascus and Tel Aviv, opening the door for Assad escape his international isolation.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />The "Axis of Resistance" of Hezbollah and Assad ran out of luck, however, with the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011. During the early months of the conflict, Hezbollah was happy with its role of propagating Assad's narrative, that there was no war in Syria, and that if there was one; Syrian militants were sponsored by former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, an improbability that Hezbollah and the Shiites conveniently believed.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Like other minorities in the Levant, Syria's Alawites try to avoid long wars. Minorities employ brutal force early on in conflicts in the hope of instilling fear in the hearts of the enemy and ending the fight fast before demographics can decide the winner.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />The Assad regime was expected to behave accordingly and not engage Syria's Sunnis, who outnumber the Alawites by 6 to 1, in a protracted war.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Iran, however, had a different idea. If we believe the literature from that period, like the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/30/the-shadow-commander" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">profile</a>&nbsp;on Qassem Suleimani in the&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">New Yorker</em>&nbsp;and the<a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/a-friend-of-my-father-iran-s-manipulation-of-bashar-al-assad" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">account</a>&nbsp;of defecting Syrian diplomat in Washington Bassam Barabandi, it was Tehran that told Assad that, with its support, he could win this battle.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Iran then instructed Hezbollah to enter Syria and save Assad. The party did an impressive job, conquering areas that Assad's mechanized elite forces had repeatedly failed in taking.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />But before winning in Syria, the party had to present its supporters with a narrative. It said its Syria campaign was going to be short and would defeat Sunni extremists. Then, there was a blowback and the extremists took the war to Beirut, which the party successfully stopped. Yet despite the victories it celebrated, Hezbollah&nbsp;continued fighting in Syria with the elusive promise of finishing off the rebels "soon."<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />In the meantime, Hezbollah's resources, both military and civilian, have been strained. The party thus enlisted the American-armed Lebanese Army to fight Sunnis around Lebanon. The army and its presidential hopeful commander happily obliged, but was no match to the border militias, therefore forcing the party to remain engaged.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Today, there is hardly a Shiite village that has not lost a dozen or more of its men. Sooner or later, Hezobllah will run out of men to recruit, which will pose a serious problem for the party.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Perhaps in Iran, where almost every one of the 70 million is Shiite, numbers do not matter. But they do in Lebanon, where at one million, the Shiites form a quarter of the population. In Syria, the Alawites, who are not Shiites, number two million out of 16 million Syrians. The number of Shiites in Syria is statistically insignificant.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Iran can send&nbsp;advisers&nbsp;to Syria and Iraq to supplement the Shiite-Alawite ranks, but cannot send troops.&nbsp;Because of language and cultural differences, Iranians in combat would be easily identified and targeted. They would barely be able to communicate with host villages that they would supposedly be defending.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />The disparity in numbers that clearly favors the Sunnis in the Levant is beginning to catch up with Hezbollah, despite its superior military capabilities. Hezbollah finds itself exhausted and bruised, and there seems to be no end in sight.<br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" />Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Alrai</em>. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/10/hezbollah-is-bruised.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-6316257742777896902Mon, 20 Oct 2014 16:32:00 +00002014-10-20T12:32:16.774-04:00Back to the tribes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rTrFBSMS4gs/VEU43Q9NGlI/AAAAAAAACww/99BJl7sKuQA/s1600/iraqitribalfigh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rTrFBSMS4gs/VEU43Q9NGlI/AAAAAAAACww/99BJl7sKuQA/s1600/iraqitribalfigh.jpg" height="508" width="840" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="left: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="left: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564267-back-to-the-tribes">NOW</a></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The US-led campaign against the Islamic State group (ISIS) is failing. There are no tribes in Iraq or Syria willing to supplement US airpower and substitute US ground troops. On the contrary, tribal movement in the Levant -- telling from recent moves by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt -- suggests that the tribes do not believe America is sincere in fighting ISIS, and are rather making arrangements to buy goodwill with the radical Islamists, should these eventually beat the Shia minority forces and sweep the region.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To add insult to injury, President Barack Obama's administration deployed Deputy National Security Advisor Anthony Blinken to Iraq. As National Security Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, Blinken served as Washington's "Iraq Czar" starting in 2009. He arranged for the formation of the second Maliki government and the eventual withdrawal -- and total American disengagement -- from Iraq.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Against all advice, Blinken bet on Maliki, often saying that the Iraqi prime minister was an ally because he was pumping more Iraqi oil, presumably against Tehran's wishes, and thus helping to push Iran's oil production offline without causing turbulence in world prices.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Needless to say, Blinken's focus on Iraqi oil made all conspiracy theories sound true. America was in Iraq for one thing only: Oil.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another one of Blinken's grave mistakes was handing over the Sunni Sahwat tribal fighters to their Shia rival Maliki, who promptly stopped their payrolls and liquidated some of their leaders under false pretexts of terrorism.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The bonds that had been forged between US troops and Sunni tribal fighters who ejected Al-Qaeda from Iraq were therefore scrapped by an Obama administration that was keen to wash its hands of Iraq, even if that meant throwing its Iraqi Sunni and Kurdish allies under the bus.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Beaten and in distress, Iraq's Sunni tribes needed a new sponsor. They found ISIS, which not only won their allegiance, but sponsored the fights that these tribes had shelved a long time ago. The Sunnis started settling scores with their Kurdish and Shia rivals in Iraq, Syria, and probably soon in Lebanon as well. The fault lines in Mosul and Kobane predate the rise of ISIS, which only helped reactivate them.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The administration and Blinken's mistakes would have been rectified had Washington understood them. Washington treated the rise of ISIS, so far the best thing that has happened to many Sunni tribes since 2008, as a national security threat to the United States. Still, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said that an "important assumption of this campaign is that we can, in fact, separate the moderate Sunni tribes from the ISIS ideology."</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The assumption that there are moderate tribes and radical tribes is flawed. Then, why would the tribes care to join a campaign of counter-terrorism that promises them little? Syria's Bashar al-Assad will remain in place, and so will the Shia government in Baghdad. Behind them, Iran will keep on working hard to compromise Sunni power.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Before sending Blinken, who is certainly not the tribes' favorite, America should have asked itself: What tribal interests can be also served in a campaign against ISIS?</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Obama had committed a similar mistake with Turkey by asking it to join a coalition with a single goal: To stem whoever threatens American interests. But Turkey has interests too, namely beating Kurdish PPK fighters and the Assad regime, and any coalition that does not take Ankara's concerns into account will not appeal to the Turks.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Michael Pregent, a former advisor to the US military in Iraq, said on a panel we were on together that tribal Iraqi men see General John Allen and scream "Allahu Akbar." Allen is one of those Americans whom the tribes fought with and trust.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The tribes of Iraq and Syria will only fight ISIS if they trust America and believe that Washington will be there for them in the long term, a lesson the Obama administration has yet to learn.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Those who know Jumblatt know that he often calls former US Ambassador to Lebanon and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, even though the latter has quit the US government to run the UN’s Department of Political Affairs.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For the tribes, trust is paramount and lasts long. Trust needs time to be earned and effort to be maintained. Obama's see-saw policies and his banging his head against the Iranian wall do not help. As long as the Obama administration does not inspire trust with the tribes, expect them to keep fighting on the side of ISIS, and expect Washington to get second-degree fighters who have been squabbling in Istanbul for over three years.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If winning the tribes proves "untrue," according to Dempsey, "We’ve got to go back to the drawing board." The sooner America does that, the better.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper&nbsp;<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Alrai</em>. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/10/back-to-tribes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-3086010691151941055Mon, 13 Oct 2014 16:30:00 +00002014-10-20T12:30:32.195-04:00How is it that ISIS is winning?<div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564223-how-is-it-that-isis-is-winning">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Islamic State in Syria and al-Sham (ISIS) has not only survived the first blow from US airstrikes, it has made the strikes look irrelevant. As ISIS conquered new territory in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, including its capital, Ramadi, its fighters have been slowly advancing in Kobani.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Because of a fundamental flow in the philosophy of President Barack Obama, who makes politics a priority over military considerations, the “it’s not a war” on ISIS has so far been a failure.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Compare Obama’s strategy to that of his predecessor, President George Bush, who during his lame duck years took endless political and popular heat for betting on the troop surge plan that ended Iraq’s civil war in 2007.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In fighting terrorism in Iraq and in Syria, Obama uses an idea he has said worked in Yemen: coupling America’s airpower with amateur local fighters. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While Obama’s plan is similar to a surge strategy, it misses one of the fundamental elements. The surge policy was to clear, hold and transfer; that is, the US military cleared Iraqi towns of terrorists, held the territory, and then transferred it to tribal fighters who were fighting alongside it.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But Obama’s plan substitutes air strikes for clearing. Even an amateur military tactician knows that the use of fighter jets, though it certainly curtails casualties of ground troops, is most effective during the early phase of war, in wiping out an enemy’s control-and-command center, weapons depots and fuel reservoirs. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After the air campaign, the infantry sweeps in and engages the enemy, sometimes calling in airstrikes as assistance against targets that ground troops pinpoint and later attack. When the military command assesses that the enemy’s anti-aircraft power is diminished enough, attack helicopters – extremely effective in taking out enemy assets both big and small – join the battle.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In his “it’s not a war” on ISIS, Obama called in the fighter jets and cruise missiles against ISIS targets. But the Air Force soon enough ran out of worthy targets and has had to resort to hunting down worthless ones, like ISIS pickup trucks, at a whopping cost of $500,000 per strike.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thanks to Obama’s prioritizing politics over military strategy, America’s campaign has amounted to little more than heartburn for ISIS. In fact, the ineffective campaign has already backfired. The longer ISIS is able to survive air strikes, the stronger it will become and the stronger its conviction that it can win will be.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Obama has also brought his failure to Turkey, pressuring Ankara – in the name of friendship and the NATO alliance – to send in its ground troops to save Kobani (and America’s face). For the Turks, who have been begging their US ally for three years to depose Assad, it is now time for payback. Ankara told Washington it would deal ISIS a fatal blow only if America deals a similar blow to Assad.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Always behind the curve, the Obama administration turned down Turkey’s offer because Washington thinks preserving the Assad regime is essential to its war on terrorism. The Obama team, endlessly overconfident, reasoned that Ankara would eventually concede to prevent Kobani from falling into terrorist hands. What the Obama team did not realize was that, to the Turks, Kobani was already in terrorist hands; Kurdish ones. Ankara has long been accustomed to violent militants ravaging its southern borders in a continuous and low-intensity war.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Obama now faces a conundrum. He is on a slippery slope toward all-out war in Iraq and Syria that will require the use of US ground troops. Should he refuse to put US boots on the ground, he will seriously damage the image of the US military. Should he beg allies for ground troops to beat ISIS, he will have to concede to Assad’s removal.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 2006, when Iraq seemed out of control, Bush entrusted America’s finest institution, the US military, to take over. He did not intervene in General David Petraeus’s plans over which military branch could be used in battle, or the number of troops, restrictions that Obama has perfected, first in Afghanistan, and now in Iraq and Syria.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Obama has forced the military to fight with one hand. The goal he defined – to degrade ISIS’s capabilities – has proven to be as vague as his war plan. He is now stuck in a war he cannot win, with a political team<span style="left: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">–</span>&nbsp;convinced it knows best&nbsp;<span style="left: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">–</span>&nbsp;that is not willing to listen to advice on the necessity of giving up on Iran or toppling Assad, which would be a dramatic turn in a so-far lousy policy.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">ISIS is winning and expanding. In the White House, steady-hand Bush has been succeeded by professor-reluctant Obama, who has surrounded himself with a team obsessed with “nuanced” policy, no matter how flawed.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington bureau chief of&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">newspaper. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/10/how-is-it-that-isis-is-winning.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-6181945298229851866Mon, 29 Sep 2014 12:15:00 +00002014-09-29T08:15:27.829-04:00Wake up, Iran<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i_xrSrqoiXE/VClNRWQ8cVI/AAAAAAAACwE/yUv8vPaDjSM/s1600/Rouhani.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i_xrSrqoiXE/VClNRWQ8cVI/AAAAAAAACwE/yUv8vPaDjSM/s1600/Rouhani.jpg" height="508" width="840" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564147-wake-up-iran">NOW</a></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Change has come, or so the Obama administration has been preaching since the election of President Hassan Rouhani, arguing that a deal with Iran has now become possible. Rouhani and his foreign minister, Javad Zarif, also jumped on the word "change" and the possibility of a "historic" deal.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet in Zarif's&nbsp;<a href="http://www.cfr.org/iran/iranian-foreign-minister-pledges-support-iraq-fight-against-isis/p33463" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">version</a>, it is America and the world – not Iran – that have changed. Globalization and other factors, Zarif believes, have made the old world order anachronistic: old rules should be replaced with new ones that give non-Western countries a bigger role in international affairs. And thus, the faster America and the West realize this new reality, the faster "change" can result in a deal, and the faster some pressing Middle Eastern problems can be solved.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Iranians have not been the only ones to think that the "decline of the West" requires new rules. Russia's Vladimir Putin has similar ideas.&nbsp;Turkey's Recep Erdogan&nbsp;thought he could revive the Ottoman Empire. Brazil gave the West a hard time during its two-year membership in the UN Security Council. Even Egypt's Mohamed Morsi believed that his miserable government and its devastated economy could join the anti-Western bloc led by BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).&nbsp;</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But the "rise of the rest" was only good as long as it lasted. Today, even the behemoth China is facing steep declines in economic growth due to structural, rather than cyclical, problems.&nbsp;Russia's economy is contracting, while Turkey can barely defend its lira from devaluation.&nbsp;And when China is wobbly, so are its suppliers of primary sources, like Brazil.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Iran's rentier economy, driven by oil sales, has been in free fall due to US-led international sanctions. A nuclear deal was Iran's best bet to end the sanctions and arrest its decline. Even so, given&nbsp;America's boom in shale fuel and the low prices of oil and gas, despite the Middle East's worst crises, Iran will still face economic turbulence even in the unlikely case that its oil production comes back online.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So it turns out that “the rest” are not as mighty as they seemed a few years ago. The West remains ahead of the race, thus reaffirming the idea that ideals like representative government and human rights remain prerequisites for sustained economic prosperity and international influence.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With the West still on top, the extant world order will live to see another day. Unlike what Zarif said in New York, there is no new paradigm that requires new rules and tools. Iran will have to live with this order, and either end its quest for a nuclear bomb and behave, or live under economic distress.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When President Obama opened a door for Iran, he did so under the mistaken impression that Iran was pragmatic and knew what it wanted. Leaving the back door open for nations like Russia and Iran has been Obama's signature tactic. The problem is that both Putin and Iran's ayatollahs mistook the hand America extended for a weak one. Instead of saving face and taking Obama's offer, Iran escalated its "right of enrichment" to a right of enrichment on an industrial scale. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself made this announcement, making Iranian backpedaling almost impossible.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Perhaps Iran thinks this is 2009 and America is bruised and retreating. Perhaps Putin's defiance made Tehran think it could follow suit. Perhaps China inviting Iran to an Asian summit and its docking of two Chinese warships at Iran's Bandar Abbas Port gave Tehran the impression that it could get its nukes and crack the sanctions.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">America's economy might not be as strong as it was in the 1990s, but it is still out in front of others, and still underwrites an America that is substantially more powerful than Iran and its friends.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The world has changed since 2009, but not in Iran’s favor. America is back in the Middle East. Its newest fighter jet, the F-22, made its debut over Syria while&nbsp;<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/irans-dinner-diplomacy" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Rouhani</a>&nbsp;and Zarif were lobbying in America, arguing that without their country, the war on terrorism would be futile.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But if the war fails and terrorism persists, Iran might be the first victim. If Tehran tries to break out of the gate and build a nuclear bomb, America will be happy to add more targets to its F-22 itinerary, irrespective of Iran's imagined military might and the monkey it sent to space.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A historic moment has passed – not Rouhani’s election, which changed little in Tehran, but rather Obama’s, which installed in the White House a president willing to go with Iran where none of his predecessors dared to go. Obama misread the change in Iran, but his mistake will not cost the US much. Tehran, in turn, misread the change in America, but its mistake will prove costly. In light of this, Iran should wake up and grab whatever is on the table.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">newspaper. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/09/wake-up-iran.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-6244636399224912753Mon, 22 Sep 2014 16:06:00 +00002014-09-22T12:06:36.316-04:00Sunnis will get their armies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0QjLbcl3KpE/VCBI9-WpkKI/AAAAAAAACvo/_lQrjyvZkvk/s1600/hagel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0QjLbcl3KpE/VCBI9-WpkKI/AAAAAAAACvo/_lQrjyvZkvk/s1600/hagel.jpg" height="508" width="840" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564102-sunnis-will-get-their-armies"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">NOW</span></a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">President Obama’s strategy in Syria is a replay of former President George Bush’s troop surge, except that instead of deploying soldiers, America’s muscle will be its Air Force. Like in the surge, reversing ISIS’s (Islamic State; ISIL) fortunes will depend on turning the local population against them through recruitment, training, arming and funding to help locals.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it best in a hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee: “Our plan is to separate Sunni tribes from ISIL […] If that proves untrue, we have to go back to the drawing board.”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dempsey, whose opinion carries weight with Obama, has resisted American intervention in Syria and Iraq for years. He argued that the US had no interests in getting involved in a battle between the Shiite Hezbollah and the Sunni Al-Qaeda. Perhaps Dempsey thought that the stalemate would last, and that the two parties would fight it out until exhaustion.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But Dempsey reversed course when ISIS closed in on Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. He advised Obama to use the Air Force, and then turned that effort into a full-blown plan that mimics Bush’s troop surge.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But for Dempsey, the day after beating the terrorists will be different than when Iraqis and Americans defeated Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the ancestor of ISIS. Instead of trying to integrate the Sahwat Sunni tribal fighters into the Iraqi Army, which reports to an elected federal cabinet under a Shiite prime minister, America has a new model in mind: Creating a national guard out of the Sunni tribal fighters under the command of their local government.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">National guards are armies of individual American states. When deployed domestically on missions such as natural disasters or managing riots, they are under the command of the state’s governor. When deployed overseas, like in Iraq or Afghanistan, they report to the president and the federal government.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">During his visit to Baghdad, Secretary of State John Kerry got Prime Minister Haidar Abadi’s approval for the project, to which Washington has allocated $48 million. Hours later, in his speech to the nation, Obama said: “We will also support Iraq's efforts to stand up National Guard Units to help Sunni communities secure their own freedom from ISIL control.”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At the Senate, Dempsey argued: “Sunni tribes in Anbar aspire to form National Guard, which can contribute to the outcome of the war” on ISIS. The general also said that the Maliki government was “very much against the idea,” while the Abadi government “may be more open to it.”</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to Dempsey, the Sunni national guard will have a command structure, and will take orders from the local government in Iraq and from the civilian opposition in Syria. In Syria, this military force will stabilize the situation, whether post-ISIS or post-Assad.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So Sunnis in Iraq and Syria will be getting their own armies, which will be strong enough to stem terrorism and defend themselves from both ISIS and Assad. These armies, however, will not be strong enough to bully neighboring regions or wage transnational wars. Their authority will be restricted to local missions, beyond which they will need authorization from the central governments in Baghdad, and maybe later Damascus.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">World nations, first and foremost Saudi Arabia, signed on to the creation of this potent Sunni force that can keep both ISIS and Iran’s forces at bay. That is why Iran publically broke its weeks of secret coordination with the US in fighting ISIS.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Iran wants ISIS defeated, but not replaced by armed groups other than its own, whether Baghdad and Assad government forces or non-government militias like Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq. Even though American F-18s were instrumental in breaking the ISIS siege on Shiite Amerli, which allowed Shiite government and militia fighters to retake it, Tehran later turned on Washington, and now opposes a world coalition that would replace ISIS with any force other than its allies.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To a hypothetical question on whether a downed US fighter jet would see the intervention of US ground forces in Iraq, Dempsey naturally answered yes. This provoked America’s amateurish foreign policy wonks to warn of a “slippery slope” and “mission creep.” They could not be more wrong.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“[T]he one thing we have learned is, is that when we do things alone and the countries – the people of those countries aren't doing it for themselves, as soon as we leave we start getting into the same problems, ”&nbsp;said Obama during at CENTCOM in Florida. This is why when the war on ISIS ends and the dust settles, there will be an autonomous Iraqi Sunni National Guard and a Free Syrian Army that can restore the Sunni-Shiite balance that America thinks it accidentally tilted in Shiite favor with its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper&nbsp;</em>Alrai<em style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">. He tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hahussain" style="color: #c6000a; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@hahussain</a></em></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/09/sunnis-will-get-their-armies.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-3602116100794543587Mon, 15 Sep 2014 16:04:00 +00002014-09-22T12:04:47.845-04:00The same mistakes after a decade of war<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YZmGGJcu4cs/VCBIcgFVA4I/AAAAAAAACvg/nZl-oL6YQU4/s1600/000_was8864142.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YZmGGJcu4cs/VCBIcgFVA4I/AAAAAAAACvg/nZl-oL6YQU4/s1600/000_was8864142.jpg" height="509" width="840" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/563673-the-war-worse-than-the-one-in-iraq">NOW</a><br /><br />How can the same Americans who debated the 2003 Iraq War, and who are still puzzled by its failure today, come up with a better policy on Syria? Fighting the Islamic State (ISIS) is necessary, but without informed opinion, it will produce failure similar to that of past wars.<br /><br />“A final advantage for Obama is that he seems to understand the historic moment in which the nightmare of the Islamic State has risen,” <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-obama-has-advantages-as-a-reluctant-warrior/2014/09/11/38c7416e-39e0-11e4-bdfb-de4104544a37_story.html">wrote</a> The Washington Post’s David Ignatius. “The old order in the Middle East is collapsing and the new one has not yet emerged.”<br /><br />President Obama, who until two weeks ago was calling Syria’s rebels amateur fighters but now wants to make them into a potent military force to beat ISIS, “understands the historic moment,” according to Ignatius.<br /><br />And where were we when there was “order” in the Middle East? Was it in the seventies and during the civil wars in Lebanon, Yemen, the Syrian coup and the Iranian Revolution? Or was it in the eighties during the civil wars, the Iraq-Iran war, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Palestinian Intifada? Or maybe in the nineties when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and there were terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. All this led to the Iraq War and eventually the Syrian revolution in 2011.<br /><br />Americans today recount the history of the 2003 Iraq War from a revisionist perspective. Iraq was not just about WMDs and links to Al-Qaeda, but also about getting to the root of the Middle East’s problems so that the region would stop producing terrorists. Before the war, US pundits cited UN reports on Arab human development, and drew parallels between a new Iraq and post-war Germany, Japan and South Korea.<br /><br />Unfortunately, many of those who ran post-war Iraq were either profiteering Washington Beltway bandits, Iraqi charlatan politicians, or policy staff who put “intermediate command of Arabic” on their CVs and found themselves in Iraq handling issues they knew next to nothing about.<br /><br />Then came Obama, whose idea for fixing the Iraqi disaster was even more disastrous. Obama employed a populist mix of isolationism, arguing that Americans needed to focus on domestic rather than foreign issues, as if Washington could not walk and chew gum at the same time.<br /><br />And instead of preserving the delicate balance that he had inherited from President Bush, Obama deployed junior staffers to wind down America’s involvement. Washington threw its weight behind former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki against the more centrist Ayad Allawi. Maliki antagonized Iraq’s Sunnis, including a certain Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi. Even worse, Obama has bet on a deal with Iran, a regional Shiite bully, thus further inflaming the Sunnis.<br /><br />Sunni humiliation exploded in 2011 in Syria and Iraq. Obama’s response was to draw red lines that he never stuck to and promise a “political solution” that never came. Then he criticized his detractors, accusing them of being war addicts.<br /><br />Obama’s passivity aggravated an already existing terrorism problem in ways that have now threatened the West again, forcing him to reverse course. Yet even after over 150 sorties by US fighter jets, Obama has refuses to utter the word “war,” insisting that his military activity is a mere strategy. In his speech to the nation, Obama talked about hunting down terrorists without using the term “Special Forces.”<br /><br />In fact, three of Obama’s four-point strategy – counter-terrorism, humanitarian assistance, and using the US Air Force against ISIS targets – have been at play for years.<br /><br />The only news is that Obama plans to expand airstrikes to include Syria, this time without consulting Congress, and without lectures from Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey about the formidable power of Assad’s air defenses.<br /><br />Obama’s echo chamber followed suit with with similar nonsense. “Arabs give tepid support to US fight against ISIS,” read the The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/world/middleeast/arabs-give-tepid-support-to-us-fight-against-isis.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;version=LedeSum&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=1">headline</a> of one piece that included Turkey under the umbrella of “Arabs.” The Arabs – comprising, among others, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Bashar Assad, Hezbollah, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and even Al-Qaeda – have never been in such consensus before. All of them want ISIS beaten. Yet the Times ran a lead story that the Arabs are reluctant, a report that it <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/world/middleeast/arab-nations-offer-to-conduct-airstrikes-against-isis-us-official-says.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;version=LedeSum&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0">reversed</a> days later, one of the signs of America’s confusion.<br /><br />In another <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/world/middleeast/us-pins-hope-on-syrian-rebels-with-loyalties-all-over-the-map.html?action=click&amp;contentCollection=Middle%20East&amp;module=RelatedCoverage&amp;region=Marginalia&amp;pgtype=article">report</a>, the Times tried to gauge the loyalties of Syria’s rebels. Apparently, using arms and money to peel Iraqi Sunnis away from Al-Qaeda is a lesson not learned. With the exception of a few who are ideologically driven, rebels – whether Iraqi, Syrian or Afghan – usually gravitate toward the highest bidder.<br /><br />America’s debate over a war that Obama wages, but calls something else, is dangerously misinformed. It’s the same kind of dangerous misinformation that caused the Iraq debacle everyone now regrets. America’s war on ISIS is not a choice. An informed Middle Eastern policy is.<br /><br /><i>Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai. He tweets @hahussain </i></span></div>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-same-mistakes-after-decade-of-war.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-8426185746674738989Tue, 09 Sep 2014 20:43:00 +00002014-09-09T16:43:08.459-04:00Putin the Terrible<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0ITKoIMBb5c/VA9l3bawjeI/AAAAAAAACvA/gJZBjwKQ-ew/s1600/000_par7624243.jpg"><img border="0" height="509" src="https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-0ITKoIMBb5c%2FVA9l3bawjeI%2FAAAAAAAACvA%2FgJZBjwKQ-ew%2Fs1600%2F000_par7624243.jpg&amp;container=blogger&amp;gadget=a&amp;rewriteMime=image%2F*" width="840" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hussain Abdul-Hussain</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/562922-putin-the-terrible">NOW</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Russian President Vladimir Putin must answer this: How can his country, with an economy the size Italy’s, restore the glory it once enjoyed as the Soviet empire? The answer is that it cannot, which means Putin is either clueless or careless. The alternative world system that Moscow’s new tsar is trying to construct is too feeble, and even if it grows teeth, Russia would be the junior partner next to juggernaut China.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Putin has yet to come to terms with the downfall of the Soviet Union. Maybe he thinks its collapse could have been avoided had it not been for an organized Western effort to bring Russia to its knees. Putin’s masquerading as the hero who will reverse Russia’s humiliation is the cornerstone of his self-perceived power, especially since his engineered comeback to the presidency in 2012.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To restore Russian glory, Putin thinks he can reconstruct the Soviet Union, or at least most of it. Thus, he has strong-armed smaller neighbors and former Soviet republics – like Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – to join his Eurasian Economic Union, and has clashed with, occupied or sponsored separatist movements in former Soviet states that have refused to concede, such as Ukraine and Georgia.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But USSR 2.0 is nowhere close to its original version, which at its peak was the world’s second largest economy and enjoyed a larger sphere of trade and influence. <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/9/4/6105491/putin-russia-chart">Vox</a> quoted JP Morgan’s Michael Cembalest as saying that “the bulk of economic power in the former communist bloc now isn’t Putin’s to command, and often is aligned against him.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Perhaps Putin thinks he can replace the Soviet empire’s lost muscle with a new anti-Western bloc, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), whose first step was the creation of a bank – conceived and structured along the lines of the World Bank – to doll out loans to governments that need them, with no conditions attached.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With 25% of the world’s economy and 40% of its population, BRICS can theoretically compete with the West. Yet that does not mean BRICS will behave like Putin or support his bullying. And while it is true that China has, together with Russia, vetoed many UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, Beijing parted ways with Moscow over Crimea.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In fact, Russia’s fellow BRICS members have yet to recognize its annexation of Crimea, which won the endorsement of only 14 nations, including pariah states like Syria, Sudan, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, in addition to the few former Soviet republics that Moscow dominates.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since first taking office in 2000, Putin has overseen one of Russia’s most impressive GDP expansions, from $196 billion to $2 trillion today. Yet Putin has overestimated his newfound strength.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Unlike China’s economic success, driven by exports and investments, Russia’s rise – like that of Brazil – has been dependent on the sale of fossil fuel and other natural resources. When the West started slamming sanctions on Putin, he feared that Europe might find an alternative gas supplier, which would result in a decline in Moscow’s revenue.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Believing that he could disentangle his economy from the West, Putin turned East and signed a deal with China. But realizing that Moscow was desperate, Beijing got a reduced price. This means that if Europe dumps him, Putin will still sell his fossil fuel, but for less cash, which he now desperately needs to fund the army he is modernizing and the lands he is conquering.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Russia-China deal suggests that Beijing will not come to Putin’s rescue in his showdown with the West, but would rather exploit his weaknesses.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the end, the bigger role Putin assumes the more Western sanctions will increase and the less revenue he will have. The Russian Treasury will start juggling its finances to make ends meet, and Moscow has already announced new taxes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Putin has no strategy. He has not thought his new world order through. Russia’s $2 trillion economy cannot possibly beat the US, the EU and Japan, whose combined economies are worth $41 trillion. While BRICS enjoys irritating the West, they will not go as far as rocking the current order that has given them, especially China, their newfound wealth.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“The imperial horn has been sounded. But we are a Third World kleptocracy hiding behind imperial symbols. There are no resources for a true imperial revival,” Russian analyst Stanislav Belkovsky told <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/watching-eclipse">The New Yorker</a>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With his populism and oil money, Putin may have made Russians feel better, but he is certainly taking them in the wrong direction. Sanctions might not have immediate effects, but they will bite soon, and they will make Putin evermore belligerent the face of subsequent Russian pain.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai. He tweets @hahussain</i></span>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/09/putin-terrible.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67418447016700800.post-7751309431833585741Wed, 03 Sep 2014 15:40:00 +00002014-09-03T11:40:14.957-04:00There isn’t going to be a deal with Iran<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YoLrhBLWce8/VAc14uWuVaI/AAAAAAAACuk/aOLGaHQ5hD4/s1600/Kerry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YoLrhBLWce8/VAc14uWuVaI/AAAAAAAACuk/aOLGaHQ5hD4/s1600/Kerry.jpg" height="526" width="840" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /><br />Hussain Abdul-Hussain<br /><a href="https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/562449-there-isnt-going-to-be-a-deal-with-iran">NOW</a><br /><br />Nuclear talks with Iran are heading into a dead end. Differences are irreconcilable, prompting supporters of the Iranian regime to try to redefine the purpose of these talks.<br /><br />Grant Iran its nuclear wishes to save President Hassan Rouhani and boost his position against the hardline hawks, is one argument. Stick to diplomacy, even if failing, because the only alternative is war, is another. Lift the sanctions on Iran because they only hurt people and never affect leaders, is a third.<br /><br />None of these arguments is relevant to the talks, bottom line of which is this: either Iran settles for a face-saving, small-scale, verifiable program that enriches uranium to low grade for medical and research purposes only, or the world should end talks and keep slapping the regime with more sanctions until someone blinks.<br /><br />President Obama, for a change, seems to be getting it with respect to Iran, judging by the most recent US sanctions on 25 persons and entities connected to the regime.<br /><br />Obama has been stubborn on Iran for a long time. When the provocative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was president, team Obama argued that the Iranian presidency was ceremonial, and that what counted was the position of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. When a seemingly more moderate Rouhani succeeded Ahmadinejad, team Obama reversed and pinned its hopes on the new president.<br /><br />For his part, Rouhani and his team inflated the importance of his election last summer, calling it historic. Time, though, has shown Rouhani for what he really is: a nice face for a thuggish regime.<br /><br />But Obama wanted to believe. He danced to Rouhani’s tunes, giving him the benefit of the doubt, chasing him around UN lunches in New York City and calling him on the phone. In his quest to entertain Iran, Obama went as far as <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-02/obama-to-israel-time-is-running-out">describing</a> Iranian behavior as “strategic, not impulsive,” saying, that Iran “has a worldview,” and that Iranians “see their interests, and respond to costs and benefits.”<br /><br />Because Obama mistakenly bet on Iran’s “strategic” view, he was sure Tehran would take his offer: Washington would allow the Iranians to enrich on a small scale under the IAEA’s watch, as a face-saving measure regarding their “right to enrich.” In return, Iran would come clean about its past and future nuclear activities, sign a deal, and enjoy its reintegration into the world community and economy.<br /><br />Obama even had a regional role carved out for Iran. He was willing to abandon America’s traditional allies and make Tehran a new partner with whom arrangements over Iraq, Syria and Lebanon could ostensibly bring peace to the region.<br /><br />What Obama did not see coming, however, was that Iran was not looking for partners in the Middle East, but rather to force America out and replace it as the dominant regional power.<br /><br />Obama also didn’t see that Iran was not willing to curb its nuclear program, and has consistently worked to expand it to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/27/us-iran-nuclear-centrifuges-idUSKBN0GR1KL20140827">a capacity that could produce</a> bomb-grade uranium. The Iranian regime will never make nukes, the argument went, because it says it won’t and the world has to take its word for it. Arousing suspicion of Iran’s nuclear activities became tantamount to “excessive demands,” in the <a href="http://www.tasnimnews.com/English/Home/Single/477035">words</a> of Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Arakji, which undermined “goodwill” and threatened to derail the talks.<br /><br />So where has the positive energy dissipated? What happened to all the hugging and kissing in Geneva in November? Have the Iranians simply been defiant and opaque about their nuclear plans, or has there been some change in their thinking?<br /><br />It is hard to know. While some argue that Iran’s position has always been deceptive, and that it was a grave error to believe Tehran or engage it, others suggest that the Iranians might be feeling bolstered by a changing world scene in which they think they have a better hand.<br /><br />Enter Russia, whose position over the past year has <a href="http://en.ria.ru/politics/20140807/191822504/US-May-Introduce-New-Sanctions-Against-Russia-Over-Iran-Oil-Deal.html">changed</a> from a leading partner in P5+1 into the leading saboteur of the sanctions on Iran. Facing European and American sanctions that may have <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26680182">significant bite</a> over the Ukrainian crisis, Moscow thinks that it can subvert them through deals with China and Iran.<br /><br />The new Russian posturing may have convinced Iran that the international sanctions will crack, even without a nuclear deal, and that Iran can improve its position by joining a broader anti-Western alliance.<br /><br />Be that as it may, the chances for a deal with Iran have seemingly decreased to a minimum. The positive spin that Rouhani, his team, and their cheerleaders in the West have been trying to put on negotiations is untenable.<br /><br />Obama's mandate to negotiate with Iran is as good as 60 days from now. If he loses the Senate, the fate of negotiations will be in question, which means the following weeks might be the only chance for Iran to make a deal with the US. After that, it might be long before there will be a similar opportunity, if there was one in the first place. <br /><br /><i>Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Alrai newspaper. He tweets @hahussain</i></span>http://hussainabdulhussain.blogspot.com/2014/09/there-isnt-going-to-be-deal-with-iran.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Hussain Abdul-Hussain)0